Shiseido was founded in 1872 in Ginza, Tokyo, as the first Western-style pharmacy in Japan. Boasting the largest sales among Japanese and Asian cosmetics manufacturers, Shiseido currently operates in about 120 countries and regions around the world. The Shiseido Group’s sales amounts to roughly 9 billion USD annually. Its subsidiary in France is the main production and Research & Development center that stores recipes for perfumes, manufacturing processes for face and body-care products, bases for cosmetics and other lipsticks--all of which are strictly confidential and carefully guarded.

Shiseido France has two sites in the cities of Gien and Ormes containing large storage facilities (21,000 square meter and 18,000 square meter respectively) that house equipment including mixers, maceration tanks, analytical chemistry and microbiology laboratories, packaging lines, manufacturing reactors and pilot equipment. A wide variety of data and quality control operations are carried out every day...