From 2 to 4 June 2026, the Parc des Expositions de la Beaujoire hosted the thirty-second edition of the French trade fair dedicated to timber. For us, it was a welcome opportunity to engage with product partners, suppliers and industry players at one of the few European events focused on the plywood sector.
Held every two years by FIBOIS Pays de la Loire, the Carrefour International du Bois stands today as the largest professional trade fair in Europe wholly dedicated to timber. The 2026 edition confirmed the compact format that has shaped its success: three days, five halls organised by macro-sector (sawn timber, panels, parquet flooring, construction, interior fit-out, services and specialised trade) and a dense programme of conferences and innovation pitches addressing the wider supply chain. In 2024, the event attracted 637 exhibitors from 40 countries and 13,500 visitors, figures that accurately reflect the standing of this event within the European trade fair calendar.
We took part as visitors, with the aim of meeting the leading European panel manufacturers, reinforcing our ties with long-standing veneer suppliers and exploring opportunities with potential downstream partners.
The impressions gathered across the halls paint the portrait of a market in watchful equilibrium. The difficulties around raw material supply, both in volume and in quality, run across the board and weigh on operators across every geography. While product innovation offers little to report at present, the certification debate is rather more animated, with rising attention to sustainability and to chain-of-custody traceability protocols.
It is here that the presence of FSC® came to the fore, with a programme of talks devoted to timber construction, to the new EUDR regulation and to ecosystem services.
The trip was a positive experience overall. Nantes confirms itself as an observatory of remarkable quality: in a matter of hours, one can assemble a reliable map of the sector’s health, rekindle relationships and pick up the weak signals that rarely surface through ordinary channels.
Until 2028, then!
