Prodef (short for French Cleaning Products) is a family-owned French company founded in 1924. It has been run by the Fiévet family for four generations, flourishing for almost 100 years in the hygiene and cleaning products sector. Prodef’s core value is respect for the physical and human environment.

Four successive generations of the same family

Prodef’s founding father: the man who saved Paris!

Raoul Nordling, who founded Prodef in 1924 – and who is the great-grand-uncle of the current managing director, Guillaume Fiévet – led an extraordinary life.
As well as being the head of a company, Raoul was Swedish consul-general. When Paris was liberated in 1944, he managed to convince General von Choltitz, the German military governor of Paris, not to destroy the French capital – against Hitler’s specific orders.
The negotiations between Raoul and von Choltitz are depicted in a number of films, including two very well-known movies: Paris brûle-t-il? and Diplomatie.

Instant sucess

The Prodef adventure began in 1924 (when the company was still called Furmoto Solitaire) with a universal cleaning product known as Solitaire Universel.

The Universal Solitaire.

After World War II ended, the company made a determined effort to conquer the market with its innovative products under the Solitaire brand – Solilaine, Solivaisselle, Solibaby and Soliclair – and developed at an exceptional rate.

	From 1956, the family business under Raymond Fiévet (nephew of Raoul Nordling) began to consolidate and bring various cleaning product companies under one roof: as well as taking over Décapfour and PPZ, the company merged with Lion Noir (polish and Miror cleaner).
	Jean Fiévet, Chairman of the Board Jean Fiévet, Raymond’s son, took over management of the group in the 1970s and expanded its activities in 1972 with the creation of a division dedicated to cleaning services, Solitaire Travaux Entretien Services (STES). This was followed by the acquisition of IDEAL in 1980, which specialised in household dyes. From 2010, the Prodef group refocused on its original core business: manufacturing and marketing cleaning products to institutions with its subsidiary Hygiène & Nature.
	Guillaume Fiévet joined Prodef in 2013 when he took over the management of the company. Under Fiévet’s leadership, the group strengthened its commitment to a comprehensive CSR approach combining tradition and modernity. Fiévet took the decision to highlight the company’s range of eco-certified and BIO-labelled products for all brands in the Prodef group.

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