Quick Facts
Biography
Michel Soufflet is a French industrialist, the Chairman of the Supervisory Board. of the family company, the Soufflet Group.the largest miller of grain and producer of malt in France. His fortune in 2011 was reported as €500 million.
Family and childhood
His parents were Jean Soufflet and Yvonne Juchat. Juchat had inherited her family's small grain collecting business in Nogent-sur-Seine, and with Jean Sufflet developed it into the private limited company “Etablissements J. Soufflet”
Business career
Michel Soufflet officially joined the company in 1947; at the time, it had only seven employees. He entered military service in 1948,and then returned to the business. By the time his father died in 1957, the company had expanded with a branch in North Africa, SARL Nord Africaine de produits alimentaires, and a malt production plant in Nogent-sur-Seine.
Upon taking over the business, he increased the customer portfolio, and diversify the company’s business into selling agricultural supplies. He developed the roll’on service in 1962, in which trucks picked up and transported cereals directly from field to silo. After the Treaty of Rome opened up prospects for exporting within the EEC, he took the unusual course of exported by sea, and built his own silo and export facilities at Rouen.
In 2000, Michel Soufflet passed the executive torch to his son Jean-Michel. Laurence Soufflet, his daughter, became Head of Communication.
In 2012, the Soufflet Group had 9 Divisions (Agriculture, Vine, Trading, Milling, Ingredients, Malting, Maize processing, Rice and pulses and Biotechnology) and nearly 4,000 staff.
Other activities
He is Director of Secobra Recherche, Member of the specialist board of the France cereals sector (formerly ONIC), and Chairman of SYMEX (French export milling association).
He is a Knight of France’s Order of Merit (1978), a Knight of France’s Legion of Honour (1988), and recipient of the Commander of Merit in Agriculture (1997), and an officer of France’s Legion of Honour (1999). He was awarded the Order of Franco-Russian Friendship by Vladimir Putin in June 2000.