When Emi Stefani and Giuseppe Lazzareschi founded Sofidel in 1966 in Tuscany, they were building more than a tissue company. They were starting what would become a multigenerational family enterprise — one whose second and third generations are now active in the business and whose founding families remain the sole owners six decades later.

That continuity is not incidental. It is, according to the company’s own leadership, central to how Sofidel has grown, entered new markets, and managed to compete at scale while holding onto the principles that defined it from the start.

To mark 60 years in business, ISSA Today spoke with two members of that founding lineage: Federico De Matteis, Vice President of Purchasing and Treasury, and Simone Giacomelli, Vice President of Finance. Their reflections offer a window into a company that has expanded across two continents without losing what made it work in the first place.

From Tuscany to the world

Sofidel’s international expansion unfolded the way its leadership describes nearly everything the company has done: deliberately, over time, and with a long-term mindset. A first major step came in 1997 with the construction of Delipapier in France — the company’s first integrated plant outside Italy. From 2000 onward, a combination of greenfield investments and targeted acquisitions extended Sofidel’s reach across Europe, eventually establishing it as the continent’s second-largest tissue producer, with operations in Poland, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Germany, Greece, Sweden, and Romania.

The United States came next. Sofidel entered the American market in 2012 through the acquisition of Cellynne, a move the company describes as the beginning of a serious, long-term commitment rather than an opportunistic entry. Since then, it has continued to expand its North American footprint through greenfield investments, capacity additions, and strategic acquisitions — including the Clearwater Paper tissue division and Royal Paper—that have dramatically increased the company’s scale in the region.

Today, Sofidel America operates across multiple states with nearly 4,000 employees, and the United States accounts for approximately 50% of the group’s total revenue. More than $1.7 billion has been invested in the country over the past three years alone.

Discipline over opportunity

Asked to identify the decisions that have most shaped the company’s trajectory, De Matteis resisted the idea of a single defining moment. “Sofidel’s success is really the result of a series of coherent decisions made over time,” he said. “One of the most important was the choice to grow internationally through a disciplined combination of industrial investments and targeted acquisitions, without losing focus on operational quality.”

That discipline extended to a willingness to reinvest in the business even when returns were measured in years, not quarters—a posture made easier, perhaps, by the structure of family ownership and the absence of pressure to optimize for short-term results.

Giacomelli pointed to something less tangible but equally important: the ability to grow while staying recognizably the same company. “As the company expanded across geographies, it managed to preserve its focus on quality, reliability, and long-term partnerships, which has been critical in building trust and supporting sustainable growth,” he said. “This has also been made possible by its people—teams that share the same values and approach, and that have been able to carry that consistency across different markets.”

Learning North America

Entering the U.S. market required more than capital. De Matteis described a process of genuine adaptation. “Sofidel did not approach North America opportunistically. It built its presence progressively, learning the market, investing in assets, and strengthening its organization over time.”

That process demanded a particular kind of organizational humility. As Giacomelli put it, succeeding in a new market required “both the humility to understand a different market environment and the courage to make long-term investments and take meaningful positions.”

The North American tissue market, both executives noted, has raised its expectations across every dimension—quality, reliability, service, flexibility, and sustainability. Sofidel’s response has been to build genuine industrial depth: local production capacity, broader geographic coverage, stronger logistics, and the organizational capability to serve customers consistently at scale.

Innovation as infrastructure

Innovation at Sofidel, De Matteis said, is understood broadly—not just as product development, but as a way of thinking about operations, plant design, logistics, and sustainability. “In a business like ours, innovation is also about how you run operations, how you design plants, how you improve logistics, and how you make the business more efficient and more sustainable over time.”

Sustainability, in particular, is treated as a core business commitment rather than a communications exercise. Sofidel was the first tissue company in the world to join the WWF Climate Savers program, and its emissions reduction targets are validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. De Matteis described sustainability as “increasingly part of how the company invests and plans for the future.”

In the Away-from-Home segment, the Papernet brand gives professional customers a consistent point of reference—product quality, supply reliability, and a sustainability profile that has grown more relevant in procurement decisions.

What consistency actually requires

Scaling across geographies without losing quality or identity is one of the central challenges of any company that grows the way Sofidel has. De Matteis attributed the company’s consistency to standards, processes, and a culture clear enough to travel.

“Trust has also been built through continuity,” he said. “Customers and partners know that the company is serious, that it thinks long term, and that it is willing to invest behind its commitments.”

Giacomelli returned to the theme of people. “When teams feel part of the same organization, share the same values, and understand the standards expected of them, consistency becomes much easier to maintain,” he said. “That sense of belonging supports alignment across markets and helps translate global principles into daily execution.”

The next 60 years

Both executives are clear-eyed about what a 60-year legacy is actually worth: not much, unless it actively informs what comes next. De Matteis described the anniversary as a source of “confidence and discipline”—confidence because the company has demonstrated it can grow and compete in different markets; discipline because a long history also makes plain that growth has to be built on solid foundations.

For Sofidel, that means continuing to invest in strategic markets, strengthening its industrial platform, and pushing on innovation and sustainability without sacrificing execution. North America remains a central part of that story—a market where the company has committed at a scale that its leadership frames not as a celebration of past achievement, but as a foundation for what is still to come.

“A 60-year legacy is valuable only if it helps build the future,” De Matteis said. “That is how we are trying to use it.”