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BUSINESS BREAKTHROUGH AWARD ai170774972790_LEONARD PUB JOURNAL 20 BLACK STAR WIN BUSINESS BREAKTHROUGH AWARD The Business Breakthrough Award is offered to recognise particular growth or progress made by a company in retreading or tyre recycling sectors during the previous year. This award was decided solely by the Nominations Committee this year, who selected French passenger retreader Black Star as the winner this year. Italmatic ran them a close second for their investments in automation within the retreading sector. Black Star has been very much in the news over the course of the last 18 months following the announcement that the company, together with its major shareholder, Mobivia, had struck a deal with Bridgestone to develop an integrated tyre recycling ecosystem on the site of the former Bri- dgestone tyre plant in Béthune, France. Black Star have now been present in Béthune sin- ce January 2022 and started to market the first Leonard branded tyres made in the plant at the start of April 2023. During the 15-month ramp seen anywhere else in the world. The plant stands as a shining example of how de- commissioned tyre factories around the world could be repurposed along circular economy lines in the future. At the same time Black Star now has a brand- new range of standard passenger retreads being manufactured in Béthune in addition to the com- pany’s existing factory near Lyon. Laurent Cabassu receives the Business Breakthrough Award on behalf of Black Star up phase the plant has been developed from a 240209 v2 vec copie.pdf 1 12/02/2024 15:55 defunct new tyre plant into a modern passenger tyre retreading facility of a kind unlikely to be