Our history

3P – Performance Plastics Products helps its clients in designing solutions for complex needs, thanks to 50 years and more experience in high performance plastics and transformation process.

3P’s history began in France in 1966 with the progressive development of a PTFE focused activity, which gave birth to the famous Gaflon® department, a world reference in the world of PTFE. The Gaflon® department is famous, among others, for launching in 1970, a product known to the public: the thread seal tape (TST), or PTFE tape. The big difference for the market back then was the fact they were the first to locally produce TST. This allowed better reactivity, and price control.

Actually, since the beginning, the Gaflon® department has gathered the skills and values you still find in 3P: demanding applications for complex needs, know-how development on all industrial processes and fine tuning of materials.

This success lead the group to develop its activity abroad, with direct subsidiaries or acquisitions in Europe and in the USA.

The company first developed its activity on basic shapes, which were the new things at that time, and soon realized that finished products allowed a finer answer to the various miscellaneous requests. The company got rapidly involved more deeply in finished parts, and kept on increasing its process range: tubes, composites, injected parts soon joined the portfolio.

The portfolio also expanded in materials. In the 80’s, new fluoropolymers like PFA, FEP, which are today classics of the industry, increased the company’s know-how. And this dynamic has run its course, with a full range of high performance plastics in 3P’s know-how, the most spread being PTFE, PFA, FEP, PCTFE, ETFE, PEEK and PI.

From basic shapes to finished parts, the Gaflon® department also evolved in a company trusted by its customers to develop and co-design complex solutions. To better follow this trend, the company renamed itself in the late 80’s and became Performance Plastics Products, also known as 3P. This change witnesses for the company the integration of any high performance plastics and process, not limited to PTFE for which Gaflon® was well known. Furthermore, it shows the capacity of the company to work closely with customers of all sectors to offer the right solution at the right price.

Nowadays, 3P keeps focusing on better answering complex needs thanks to proximity and new skills development in high performance plastics assemblies, or bonding.

Local sales managers helped by Innovation & Development teams ensure a strong relationship with our customers. Thanks to companies in 8 countries across 3 continents, and also with the help of sales partners, 3P can follow projects in the whole world. Therefore, our expertise is renowned worldwide.