VIDEO. “We work with machines as old as the company”: within the walls of Sofac, the last still manufacturer in the South-West

Noises of sheet metal, stainless steel and steel resonate from the modest workshop on the Condom road to Nérac. This industrial zone is home to Sofac, a boilermaker founded in 1973. Although modest in appearance, it is nevertheless within these walls that the magic happens. In fact, it is the last company in the South-West to manufacture stills.

“We exist thanks to the robustness and reliability of our devices,” emphasizes Marlène Previtali, who took over the company a little over a year ago. Thanks to that, we are recognized in the industry. We we don’t have any salespeople, we work solely through word of mouth from our customers.”

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VIDEO. Gers: SOFAC, the last still manufacturer in the South-West, delivers worldwide

41 years ago, the Sofac boilermaker was born on the initiative of Arthur Chiaradia and his son, Michel. The two friends embarked on a daring bet: the manufacture of Armagnac stills intended for local producers in the region. A challenge met with flying colors, since years later, Sofac exports all over the world. Taiwan, Vietnam, Australia, Ireland, Martinique, Russia, Ukraine… “We have them almost everywhere and they start from here, from Condom, in the Gers.”

“We want to work on a human scale”

Despite this international influence, Sofac has decided to maintain its family aspect. In the workshop, everyone knows each other. “Today, there are nine employees,” explains the manager. “There have never been more than 6 or 7 boilermakers in the workshop, we want to work on a human scale, with a real family spirit.”

Only once in the company’s history has the number of boilermakers increased significantly. “It was in the 1980s, we had 14 boilermakers in the workshop. Sofac had won a factory contract in Turkey. It was a big project so we needed a lot of people.”

In France, they are the last to make Armagnac stills, and the only ones to make concentration columns. “For discontinuous devices, there are only five of us in France producing them.” In the department, all Armagnac producers collaborate with Sofac. “It’s mainly the restoration of appliances. Today, unfortunately, we no longer sell many Armagnacais in the territory, only a few are sold but these are often second-hand goods that are brought up to standard or we restore. As for new products, the last one to leave our workshops for Gers dates back to 2019.”

“Our machines are as old as the company”

This Thursday, October 31, enthroned in the workshop, among other things, the oldest still in France. “It belongs to the Ognoas estate and was built in the very first years of the 19th century. Today, we are restoring its feed trough,” specifies Marlène Previtali.

Each year, only two or three new stills leave the workshop, “if it’s a good year”. “We start from copper, stainless steel or steel sheets and we shape everything by hand, with our machines which are as old as the company,” adds the manager of Sofac. For a complete construction, two to three months are necessary, six for the most complex. “That’s why we don’t make thousands and hundreds of them either. In addition, at this season the distillers are starting to return to the countryside for the production of Armagnac, so we have to keep them slots for restorations.”

For construction, the fashion this year would be whiskey, after a “big fashion around the manufacture of gin during the Covid-19 period”.