In Carentoir, in Brittany, the company GF Palettes is modernizing its sawmill and preparing to move from an integrated sawmill and pallet workshop toward a service-oriented sawmill focused on timber construction.

The “shared dream”, GF Palettes’ project,

In March 2017, Luc Gautier, a forestry operator and head of SAS Gautier in Plessé (44), and Guillaume Ferré, a former executive at Veolia, took over the company Gerpal, which was then in economic difficulty. The objective was to continue pallet manufacturing activity with an integrated sawmill. Between 2017 and 2020, around €850,000 were invested: buildings, electricity, a robotic cell (for assembling specific pallets), and upgrades to the sawing line. The company was eventually renamed GF Palettes.

“The company is positioned in the sawing of packaging wood and the production of off-standard and custom pallets,” explains Guillaume Ferré. “Our strategic plan, ‘the shared dream’, places people at the heart of GF Palettes. In early March 2026, we moved to a new 5-hectare site in Carentoir in Morbihan. The completion of a project involving the teams is structured around the economy, employment, but also working conditions, ergonomics, and job attractiveness.”

It is an SME whose objective is to remain flexible in order to provide technical and economic solutions to customers. Its specific products and services help avoid competition with other industry players that have much larger resources. As a result, “our flagship products are special packaging items, such as tailboard pallets produced and delivered in contexts requiring responsiveness and flexibility,” the CEO explains. Customer criteria are evolving, with price coming first, followed by overall service quality. The CSR approach is increasingly valued by customers.

The new Mébor head saw, a first in France.

Since early 2026, in a new building (with a 2,400 m² glued laminated timber structure built by Daniel Constructions in Saint-Malo), two sawing lines have been installed in parallel to process timber for construction and pallet manufacturing: a first band-saw line, VTZ 1400 Mebor, for large diameters up to 1,200 mm and lengths of 6 m (details in the adjacent box), and a circular line, SDH-D 320 Mebor, for smaller diameters up to 320 mm and lengths between 2 and 4 m. This machine, equipped with a double shaft, is fitted with 500 mm circular saws and can perform up to seven cutting passes, including cores and edge boards. It features a dual control system: one in the head saw cabin with a joystick, and another near the SDH in a simpler control mode.

Products from either the VTZ 1400 or the SDH-D 320 are conveyed via chains, transfers, and separators: boards and planks go to the VR 900 S resawing line, while cores are sent to the VC 900 DE20 double-shaft reprocessing center. Both machines are equipped with two-sided 3D scanners for automatic control and infeed canters.

Finished products fall into bins, are stacked, and then move to storage or supply the assembly workshops. The investment amounts to €3.4 million for the processing section and €1.9 million for the building, 25% of which is subsidized by ADEME (Call for Projects: Wood Construction System – France 2030).

The sawmill operates on a make-to-order, just-in-time basis, in order to minimize intermediate storage due to the economic impact of raw material stock. Production planning and the issuing of workshop manufacturing orders are managed using a homemade Excel tool (the Open-Prod ERP system from Visiativ is currently being deployed). Monitoring is ensured through production equipment data and a performance management module from Astrée. “In the future, the new installation will make it possible to saw all locally available hardwood and softwood species,” explains Guillaume Ferré. “Except oak, which requires a different approach. The sawmill’s versatility should also allow us to process secondary species that are little used in Brittany and to imagine new outlets for them.” He adds: “Once the current investment is fully operational, we will consider the use of our by-products and a move toward secondary processing. In the end, in the former sawmill we produced 95% packaging and 5% construction wood products, with a material yield of 50%. In the new one, it will be 50% packaging and 50% construction products, targeting a material yield of 55%. In short, we aim to shift from almost entirely pallet sawing to 50% construction timber products: framing, structural timber, etc.”

By Maurice Chalayer

Photo credits: Linda Gautier

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