Marc Grégoire (January 15, 1906 - January 10, 1996) was an inventor of PTFE (Teflon) coated non-stick pans. He was an

ONERA The Office National d'Études et de Recherches Aérospatiales ( English: National office for aerospace studies and research) or ONERA, dubbed ''The French Aerospace Lab'' in English, is the French national aerospace research center. Originally f ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

at the time of the invention. In one version of the story, he devised a method to apply Teflon to an aluminum mould, to assist the removal of glass fibre fishing rods from the mould. When his wife, Colette M. Grégoire, learned of it, she challenged him to create a non-stick saucepan. He succeeded by applying Teflon to the base of a frying pan. Another conflicting version tells that the technique to apply Teflon on aluminum was developed by his colleague, not by himself, and Grégoire wanted to coat his fishing gear to prevent tangles, instead of wanting to coat an aluminum mould. Marc earned a patent for the invention in 1954. In 1956 Grégoire and his wife launched the

Tefal Tefal S.A.S. (a portmanteau of TEFlon and ALuminium.) is a French cookware and small appliance manufacturer, owned by Groupe SEB (a global manufacturer of cookware) since 1968. The company is known for creating the non-stick cookware category a ...

Corporation, developing the slogan: ''La Poêle Tefal, la poêle qui n’attache vraimant pas (The Tefal saucepan, the saucepan pan that really doesn’t stick.'') By 1960, they sold 3 million items annually.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grégoire, Marc Year of birth missing 20th-century French inventors