Seppic Triples Natural Extract Capacity at French Lons Plant

Seppic has tripled production capacity for natural extracts at its Lons site near Pau, France, with a new 1,400 m2 building dedicated to its Ceramosides range.

The Air Liquide subsidiary broke ground on an eight-hectare campus that employs more than 50 people. The expansion targets Ceramosides, wheat extracts rich in phytoceramides, which serve both the nutrition and beauty markets.

What Are Ceramosides?

Ceramosides are wheat-derived phytoceramide extracts formulated for both topical and oral use. According to the company, the ingredients carry clinically proven benefits for anti-ageing, skin hydration and hair loss reduction.

Seppic positions the range across two channels at once: cosmetic actives and nutraceutical supplements. That dual positioning is the commercial logic behind the Lons investment, since one extraction line can feed both markets.

How Big Is the Ceramide Market?

The demand signals behind the expansion are concrete. The hashtag #ceramides has racked up more than 1.4 billion views on TikTok, a rough proxy for consumer-level awareness of the ingredient class.

On the nutrition side, the food supplement segment is growing at a 6.9% CAGR for the 2024-2030 period, per the market data Seppic cites.

Commercial traction is already visible. The Ceramosides tradename appears on the packaging of over 150 nutrition brands worldwide as a trusted key ingredient, and the company says demand keeps climbing.

Why Lons, and Why Now?

The new unit is a capacity play, not a diversification into new chemistry. Seppic frames it as answering a growing market need and confirming what it calls renewed ambition in natural-extract ingredients for cosmetics and nutraceuticals.

CEO Virginie Cavalli said: "Our teams take great pride in the inauguration of this new unit. We are granting ourselves full capacity to meet the growing market demand and thus serve our customers even better."

She called it "a major investment for the future, which also allows us to continue diversifying the activities of our Lons site, anchoring activity in the heart of local French territory."

That second point matters for the site itself. The Lons plant has historically done more than extract production, and the new building broadens its activity base while keeping the work in French territory rather than shifting volume abroad.

What Does This Mean for Dermatology and Aesthetics?

For dermatology-adjacent formulators, more Ceramosides capacity means supply security for an ingredient class that has moved from niche to mainstream in both skin care and ingestible beauty.

Phytoceramides sit at the intersection of two trends clinicians now see routinely: patients asking about oral supplements for skin and hair, and topical ceramide formulations for barrier repair. Wheat-derived phytoceramides are among the best-established oral sources in the nutricosmetics space.

The capacity tripling signals Seppic expects the oral-beauty segment to keep compounding at close to that 6.9% supplement-market growth rate through 2030, with ceramides remaining a headline ingredient.

Whether consumer TikTok interest converts into sustained clinical-channel demand is a separate question. But with 150-plus brands already labeling Ceramosides on-pack, the ingredient has cleared the first commercial bar, and Seppic has now built the manufacturing base to chase the next phase of that growth.