The Bic Lighter More than 30 years of expertise providing safe, reliable lighters to millions of consumers around the world BIC has produced 20 billion lighters over the last 30 years. With 2.2 million BIC® lighters manufactured each day, BJ75 in France is the main lighter factory of the BIC Group. n 1962, CRICKET launched the first non-refillable lighters. In 1964, FEUDOR followed and launched its own model. In 1971, Marcel Bich, founder of the company BIC®, who also believed in developing the non-refillable lighter, decided to enter the market. At that time, CRICKET had been acquired by the Swedish company Swedish Match, and the Japanese company TOKAI had launched its own version of the non-refillable lighter. Meanwhile, BIC® took over FLAMINAIRE, a company operating in Redon (western France), acquiring its expertise in gas lighters and safety. Safety became and remains BIC®’s main asset. FLAMINAIRE, with thirty years of expertise and a number of patents under its belt, used its knowledge to design and produce J1 model BIC® lighters. At the end of 1972, BIC® launched mass production of lighters at the Redon factory. BIC® lighters were an immediate success and have remained successful thanks to their flame quality, lighting capacity and shape, which fits particularly well in the hand. Today BIC® manufactures and sells 5 million lighters every day worldwide. It produces lighters in four factories located in France, Spain, the United States and Brazil. BIC® is the world leader in pocket lighters, and ranks second worldwide in multi-purpose utility lighters.

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BIC® lighters undergo stringent quality checks

To ensure that 100% of BIC® lighters work properly before they leave the plant and to maintain high safety standards, BIC® has established a stringent quality procedure for its products.
  • Each BIC® lighter undergoes more than fifty individual automatic quality checks during its assembly. For example, checks done during the last phase of assembly include monitoring lighting, flame, and extinction. These quality checks are based on advanced technology using digital cameras, flow meters, proximity detectors, force sensors, gas detectors.
  • Ongoing verification of checking stations
  • Each employee in the lighter plant spends nearly 25% of his/her time in plant checking product conformity and proper operation of the control equipment.
  • Additionally, BIC® conducts regular tests on its own products already on the market.
And even more… To ensure ever greater safety for its users, people around them and their environment, in addition to the requirements of the ISO 9994 international safety standard, BIC has developed and perfected very strict internal quality & safety requirements. The example of the hood: The hood of a lighter mainly serves to protect the reservoir from heat and flame. Using a lighter without a hood may prove to be highly hazardous for users, people around them and their environment. The hood on each BIC® lighter is made of very thick hardened steel and is fixed with an anti-removal system. The design of some low-cost imported lighters results in an overly flexible hood due to the use of poor carbon quality steel, and it may be very insufficiently attached. It can easily come off, without forcing. If one uses this lighter without a hood, the upper part of the lighter may burn and as the reservoir is no longer protected by the hood, it too can catch on fire, or even burst under certain conditions.