After four years away, the Carrefour International du Bois (CIB) came back with a bang.

The French show in 2020 was twice postponed, then cancelled. But it finally welcomed back the trade from France, Europe and around the world at the start of June – and how.

Exhibitor numbers were up 8%, hitting a record 607 and filling almost every square metre of the Grand Palais and four halls – including the Techniques & Solutions construction products hall – at Nantes’s Parc Beaujoire exhibition complex. Attendance did better still, at 14,000 up 22% on the 2018 show.

Moreover, the CIB, initially a primarily French affair, cemented its status as a global trade forum. In 2018, 29% of visitors were from outside France. This year it was 39%, while 37% of exhibitors were also from abroad.

A slight dip in UK visitor numbers to 94 was attributed to the jubilee holiday overlap.

The surge in attendance was described by one visitor as an “equal and opposite reaction to being confined by Covid”.

“It was a bounce back. After lockdown, people just wanted to get out there and widen their horizons again.”

“Another important factor is increasing timber demand across the market, from construction, to interior and exterior wood product sectors, resulting in tight supply. This made finding alternative products and suppliers an added motivator for visitors,” said CIB international business executive Sam Padden.

As always, says CIB, the core of its appeal is that it’s “about timber and only timber”. At the same time another theme identified this year was an ever greater focus on value-added, advanced performance products. This was seen as an industry responding to the widening application of wood, notably in construction, and specifier and end-user demand for timber and wood products that match or exceed the technical specification of man-made materials.

“These products testify to the industry’s ability to meet the technological and ecological challenges of tomorrow,” said CIB manager Géraldine Cesbron.

Meanwhile, the CIB conference programme covered the industries’ current and future challenges and opportunities, from maintaining the forest resource, to construction decarbonisation.

CIB president Jean Piveteau also commented on the increasingly “upscale presentation” of stands. Visitors saw this as reinforcing the show’s reputation as a prime platform for unveiling latest ranges and corporate developments.

Among those highlighted by Cosylva (www. cosylva.fr) was its move further down the construction supply line. The glulam specialist uses Scandinavian and eastern European spruce and has felt the supply pressure resulting from spruce bark beetle infestation and war in Ukraine. But the company has also ridden the wave of France’s Douglas fir harvest growth – its sites at Bourganeuf and Langladure are at the heart of the Douglas resource – and it has developed a reputation for the timber.

Today its products range from floor and roof systems and brise-soleil components, to beams, columns and pillars used for everything from industrial and agricultural buildings, to multi-storey commercial and residential blocks. At the CIB it highlighted its strategic step into further assembly of more factory prefabricated components and whole building elements.

“Our package increasingly includes fixtures and fittings and we’re looking across the market, at houses, factories, sports halls, supermarkets, schools – buildings up to nine storeys high,” said technical sales representative Thomas Rouchon.

The company, he said, is interested in supplying the UK. “But currently we’re so busy in France, with full order books into 2023.”

One focus of Swiss-based African supplier Interholco was its development into one of the biggest manufacturers of African engineered hardwood products, notably window scantlings (www.interholco.com).

“We’re also one of the most experienced; we’ve been developing finger-jointed and laminated products for 10 years,” said commercial director Christian Morgenroth. “Our core goal is stable quality, standardised products that deliver high, predictable yield and performance, bringing Swiss, German and African approaches together.”

Interholco is also developing products in a wider range of species, with varieties highlighted including kanda, kosipo, bosse, tali and padouk, all FSC-certified.

“It’s a demanding process, with each having different machining, gluing and other technical characteristics,” said Mr Morgenroth. “But for environmental and economic sustainability, we can’t keep using just sipo and sapele. There may be risks, but we must open our minds to other species.”

Multi-faceted pine and Douglas fir specialist Moulinvest was at CIB after a “busy, if volatile year” (www.moulinvest. com). “Timber supply has been challenging, but demand has been strong and customers have accepted prices are what they are – and they’re now more stable,” said commercial director south Joseph Tixier.

Output at Moulinvest’s main mill stands at 400,000m3 a year, including structural timber, cladding and fencing products. Its pallet mill produces 25,000m3, while annual treated output is 100,000m3.

While it’s “ultra-busy” in France, after attending the Timber Show in Birmingham, Moulinvest is interested in developing UK business. “We’re looking for importers and distributors, notably in Wales and Scotland, and particularly interested in developing Douglas sales,” said Mr Tixier.

Raw material supply was also highlighted as an issue by cladding and panelling producer Sivalbp, which sells in the UK via Vincent Timber (www.sivalbp.fr).

“The EU embargo against Russia means finding alternative larch sources,” said UK sales representative Yves Baudin. “But we’re adapting.”

Demand, he added, continued to increase, including to the UK despite post-Brexit trade bureaucracy. Attracting particular interest at the show were grey New Age, designed to achieve slow, ultra-uniform silvering, and a matt variant in Sivalbp’s Elegance cladding, both in cedar, Douglas, Nordic pine and thermo-treated larch. Also catching visitors’ attention was black, shou-sugi-ban-style thermo-treated pine Vintage.

Sivalbp sees France’s new RE2020 environmental regulation, stipulating use of more bio-based building materials, driving cladding and timber consumption – and its new brochure highlights wood’s low global warming potential; 1.29kg/CO2 emitted per m2 of Douglas cladding compared with 55.4kg for brick.

Mr Baudin added that Sivalbp is looking for a sales/distribution partner in Ireland.

Protac, part of the €105m Groupe Rose, alongside Norsilk and Estonia-based Puidikoda, was targeting designers with its highly textured Struktur spruce cladding and panelling (www.grouperose.com). Tongue and groove Sawblade and Snake feature, as the names suggest, rough hewn and reptile skin surface effects and are available in Charbon, Protac’s version of the scorched wood look.

Andrew Goto of Timber Focus, which represents Groupe Rose in the UK (where its annual sales are £6m), anticipates Struktur having major appeal here (www. timberfocus.com).

An ongoing preoccupation of French oak and, to a lesser extent, beech mills is continuing high log exports, notably to China.

“French oak mills require 1.7 million m3 a year, but France exports 30% of its 2 million m3 log harvest. That’s not sustainable,” said Eric Ducrot of Eurochêne sister mill Les Avivés de l’Est (www.eurochene.com). “Government measures now ensure a proportion of logs from state-owned forest undergo some processing in the EU. But without more action we’ll see further industry contraction.”

That said, Les Avivés/Eurochêne are upbeat, reflected in their development of more value-added components and a new high-yield sawline. “Securing our log supply is critical, but we must also invest to increase automation and efficiency,” said Mr Ducrot.

He added that the companies’ UK exports remained robust, comprising largely oak boules for door and furniture production, beams and square-edged beech for furniture legs.

Faced with tightening global raw material supply and rising prices, leading French spruce, fir and Douglas processor Monnet- Seve is also focused on added value (www.monnet-seve.com). The company operates five mills and two glulam plants, processing 1 million m3 of logs annually. “We’re investing increasingly in second and third-stage transformation, including in kilning and planing capacity” said CEO Thomas Seve. “We’re also developing a biofuel operation.”

Mr Seve also said the impact of the Ukraine war on larch supply was having a price knock-on across softwoods and clears. But he too saw environmental regulation boosting French timber demand.

Long-established French poplar and okoumé plywood producer Drouin was highlighting latest developments in its poplar ab pano brand acoustic panel range, also partly inspired by the opportunities in wood created by RE2020 (www.abpano.fr).

Fire-retardent treated and incorporating mineral wool, these are produced in 25mm variants for domestic use and M1-rated 50mm for commercial.

“Depending on installation, ab pano products achieve NRC levels of 0.95,” said the company’s Frédéric Castaings.

Ducerf was showing Bard 106, a carbon finish thermo-treated poplar cladding, highlighting the oak specialist’s increasing penetration into second transformation markets, with a new saw line and scanner recently added to increase yield and produce more material for further processing (www.ducerf.com).

Currently 15% of Ducerf’s sawn output is destined for its value-adding facilities. The goal is 50%. “We’ve invested €8m in five years and plan further developments, with the focus on efficiency and ergonomics,” said export manager Florence Perrucaud. “With societal trends boosting timber product demand and mounting pressure on raw material supply, the future will be increasingly in second transformation products.”

Brexit has complicated Ducerf’s UK business, but it is now growing.

As for exhibitors’ views on the CIB itself, the general consensus, according to Ms Padden, was that it was “the best ever”. And she was upbeat the momentum can be continued in 2024. “We’re pretty much at capacity exhibitor-wise unless we push back the walls! But there’s always room for visitor growth,” she said.