Le Teillage du Vexin in Saussay-la-Campagne (Eure), open since the end of July 2023, was inaugurated on Thursday June 13, 2024 in the presence of several hundred guests, including some from India or China. It must be said that the arrival of the Depestele group in eastern Eure is an event, the last linen cooperative in the village having closed several decades ago. Twenty million euros investedthree buildings on 13,000 square meters make up the Vexin Scutchingwith two production lines where around twenty employees work 2/8 shifts. “We had a production capacity of 8,000 hectares and hasToday we are increasing by an additional 4,000 hectares.” rejoices the site director, Romain Depestele.
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A third production line will be ordered soon. The Depestele group is therefore looking for employees because “we still subcontract linen scutching to French or even Belgian colleagues” explains Marc Depestele, the president of the group. Depestele employs “a full-time person who is looking for staff, because as soon as we have the staff, we will train them and we will move into a triple team on two lines” pursues the leader and “afterwards we will have to continue looking for the third line”. Around thirty positions are to be filled on “jobs as production operators or line drivers” explains Romain Depestele.
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A profitable sector for producers
Since 1988, Depestele had promised farmers to open scutching in Vexin when there were sufficient flax areas. This is now done with 80% of the harvest within a 25 kilometer radius and, in the end, the equivalent of 1,400 fewer trucks on the roads per year. Maxime Pluchet, 34, farmer near Magny-en-Vexin (Val-d’Oise) welcomes the arrival of Teillage du Vexin near his home: “It gives meaning to what we do because it saves linen from traveling miles and miles, it avoids going back and forth to Seine-Maritime and there are logistical gains for them which will then be passed on to us “. In recent years, we have seen more and more flax in Vexin, which presents a agronomic and economic interest for flax growers. Maxime Pluchet devotes around 10% of his plots to the cultivation of flax (35 hectares) and the thirty-year-old does not hope that the areas devoted to the fiber will increase in Vexin, “that way, it will hold the market and competitors will not be able to do so, we hope that it remains a niche”. Linen represents 0.9% of global textiles. In ten years, the area of flax cultivated in France has more than doubled and the gross margin per hectare for the farmer can reach 4,000 euros, more than double that of wheat or rapeseed.
