L'Oréal announced the opening of its largest hair color production plant in the world in terms of production capacity. Focusing entirely on hair color products, the 32,000-square-meter facility is located in the Logistik II Industrial Park, in Villa de Reyes, State of San Luis Potosí, Mexico. L'Oréal's other Mexican production plant is located in Mexico City. This new facility represents an investment totaling $100 million from L'Oréal and will double the production capacity in Mexico, supplying both Latin America and North America, and will create approximately 1,200 jobs.
"The L'Oréal Group has decided to open its new production plant in Mexico, since this is one of the most strategic countries for the group, a key crossroad between North America and Latin America. To have built our largest hair color plant here shows once more our deep commitment to provide the market with superior quality products and great value," said Jean-Philippe Blanpain, executive vice president of operations, L'Oréal.
In line with the company’s ambition to reach one billion new consumers in the next 10 years, this new factory is also a part of L'Oréal's global strategy towards greater specialization of its production by business segment. "Given the growth of our business in the country and our industrial expertise, Mexico is key to attaining our goal of our next billion new consumers. The plant of San Luis Potosi reflects our confidence in the ongoing expansion of the Mexican market and that of the Latin American market itself," said Alexandre Popoff, executive vice president, Latin America Zone, L'Oréal.
The plant in San Luis Potosí started operations in April 2012, with a targeted production of over 100 million units in 2013 and over 210 million in 2014, for a total production of 400 million cosmetics units in the country (including the Mexico City plant). It currently manufactures hair color products for L'Oréal Paris, Garnier, SoftSheen Carson and, from 2013, for L'Oréal Professionnel.