At a glance
OCB is a French rolling-paper brand with manufacturing roots in the nineteenth century and a trademark dating to 1918. In the United States it operates through Republic Brands, selling paper booklets, cones, tips and accessories made from bamboo, hemp, wood, flax and rice fibers.
From an 1822 paper mill to OCB
The story begins in 1822, when brothers René and Guillaume Bolloré built a paper mill beside the Odet River in Brittany. Production later expanded to Cascadec. When the OCB trademark was created in 1918, its initials joined Odet, Cascadec and Bolloré—the river, mill and family behind the operation.
That distinction prevents a common timeline error: the paper-making lineage begins in 1822, while OCB as a named brand begins in 1918.
Ownership and Republic Brands
The industrial history continued through Bolloré Technologies before Republic Group acquired the business in 2000 and it became Republic Technologies International. Current U.S. packaging, distribution and official materials identify Republic Brands, whose portfolio also includes other roll-your-own products.
OCB is therefore the consumer mark; Republic is the present corporate and distribution context. The brand remains associated with French paper production rather than being a recently created U.S. cannabis label.
How OCB makes rolling paper
OCB says it makes its paper from scratch. Fibers are pulped and treated, the slurry is formed on moving mesh, and the wet sheet is pressed and dried. Large rolls are then watermarked, gummed, cut, interleaved and packed into booklets.
The watermark presses the OCB logo and lighthouse pattern into the sheet. A precisely applied natural Acacia gum line creates the seal. This vertical process gives the company control from raw fiber through finished booklet.
Paper families and formats
The current range includes Bamboo, Organic Hemp, Brown Rice, Unbleached, Premium, Ultimate and X-Pert papers, plus cones, filter tips and related accessories. Common formats include 1¼ and Slim, while specific products vary in paper weight, leaf count and dimensions.
Material names should be read literally only when the product page supports them. OCB’s Brown Rice paper uses real rice fiber, while Bamboo uses 100 percent bamboo paper; Premium is a wood-fiber paper. They are not interchangeable recipes under different colors.
Material sourcing
OCB reports French cooperative-grown hemp, rice from the Camargue delta, managed-forest wood, flax and responsibly harvested bamboo. Natural Acacia gum is collected from trees in the Sahel region without cutting them down.
The company says it endeavors to source materials within 500 kilometers of its facilities where possible. That is a stated sourcing goal, not a guarantee that every component in every SKU originates inside that radius.
Environmental operations
OCB describes its Perpignan facility as carbon neutral and powered with hydropower, wind, solar and biomass. It also reports on-site water treatment, recycling unusable paper back into production, biodegradable compact packaging and vegetable-based printing inks.
The plant lists ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 certifications, covering quality, environmental and occupational-management systems. Those certifications concern management systems and should not be misrepresented as health approval of smoking.
Quality control and traceability
The company says every booklet carries a production code that can trace the date, machine and team responsible for it. An in-house laboratory tests products during manufacturing, giving customer service a route to investigate defects.
OCB also warns that counterfeit products exist. Buying from the official store or an authorized retailer, then checking the booklet’s code and print quality, is more reliable than judging authenticity from a marketplace photo.
Houseplant by OCB
A current collaboration pairs OCB manufacturing with Seth Rogen’s Houseplant design brand. The Houseplant by OCB line includes bamboo, brown-rice and classic papers and cones, using Acacia gum and specifications published for each format.
This is a licensed collaboration, not a separate paper mill or a cannabis product. It demonstrates how OCB extends its materials and manufacturing into partner-branded accessories.
How to compare OCB products. Compare fiber composition, sheet size, paper weight, leaves per booklet, tips or cone capacity, gum and packaging—not broad claims that one paper is universally “best.” For example, OCB lists papers ranging from 10 to 16.5 grams per square meter, so “ultra-thin” still covers more than one specification.