As planned by its manager, Morgane Osta Friend, the opening of the construction site of the future Bourbon Bois Expérience manufacturing and production plant, financially supported by the France Relance plan, took place at the beginning of May on the ZAC Roland-Hoarau in Pierrefonds.
Morgane Osta Amigo was surrounded by 17 members of her team to receive Gilbert Manciet, sub-prefect for recovery, Lucien Giudicelli, sub-prefect of the district of Saint-Pierre, a Viviane Malet, senator, among many guests. Morgane Osta Friend, general director of Archipel Bois Habitat, carries this project for a new production unit for construction frames and wooden furniture, one of the main characteristics of which will be that all its production waste will be recycled into new construction materials. This project will not only repatriate the production of the Reunion wooden housing specialist to Pierrefonds, currently located at the Port, but will allow it to triple its production capacity with ten additional jobs at stake. Over 5,000 square meters, the new space will bring together on the same site, the production unit, the storage unit, a showroom and offices. This project benefits from aid of 800,000 euros from the France Relance system for an investment of three million euros.. The complementarity of private initiative and public action was therefore highlighted. But this symbolic opening of the site was also the opportunity, for Morgane Osta Amigo, to recall the journey which led it to take over part of the assets and save part of the jobs of the former emblematic company of Reunion industry Bourbon Bois, who notably built the famous huts.
Reunion know-how saved and developed
The name Tomi comes from Maurice Tomi, founder of Bourbon Bois in 1961. This inventive builder of social housing in Reunion Island is at the origin of a concept of social housing that has become very popular : the famous Tomi boxes, prefabricated wooden and concrete block houses, inexpensive, who have contributed to meeting the needs for social housing in Réunion. In 1989, Maurice Tomi, sold Bourbon Bois to the Guadeloupean group Le Villain which continued the activity, mainly as a social operator. The activity continued until 2018 or following the removal of the “housing access” APL decided by the government in 2018, the manager chose to purely and simply close the structure. Failure to be able to take over the company which had closed, Morgane Osta Amigo has acquired the trademarks and patents. She successfully restarted, under the Bourbon Bois Expérience brand, industrial manufacturing activity, saving and beautifying this Reunion know-how by offering new models of wooden housing and developing a new commercial dynamic. It is this journey that the launch of the construction site of the new waste-free factory marks a new milestone.. Having set the objective of delivery at the end of the year, Morgane Osta Amigo met her guests for the opening of the factory.
