{"id":1018,"date":"2020-12-09T01:06:11","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T01:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/our-story\/"},"modified":"2022-02-24T15:37:29","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T15:37:29","slug":"our-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/en\/our-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The first fancy biscuits<\/h2>\n

Around 1840, Jean-Honor\u00e9 Olibet (1817-1891) moved into the Saint-Pierre neighbourhood of Bordeaux and started producing handmade dry biscuits. They were very popular with the seafarers of those days, as these biscuits could keep for a long time. But the young entrepreneur also started to produce fancy biscuits, to meet the demand from the middle classes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n \n \n

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The English adventure<\/h2>\n

A few years later, Jean-Honor\u00e9\u2019s son Eug\u00e8ne (1844-1915), joined the business. Following a one-year stay in the United Kingdom around 1860, he persuaded his father to import some manufacturing equipment, notably a chain oven, commonly known as an \u201cEnglish oven\u201d. And so Olibet \u201cthe Young & Son\u201d pioneered their way to coverage of the whole French market, offering a wide range of biscuits with an \u201cabsolutely inimitable\u201d taste…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n \n \n

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The first biscuit factory<\/h2>\n

In 1872, the OLIBET Biscuit Company opened France\u2019s very first biscuit factory, in Talence (near Bordeaux). Three other factories followed: Suresnes (1879), Tassin-la-Demi-Lune in the Lyon region (1883), then Renteria, in the Spanish Basque Country (1895). At the same time, the \u201cPremier French Brand\u201d was piling up honours and medals, notably winning the gold medal at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n \n \n

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The first advertisements<\/h2>\n

The success of OLIBET biscuits is largely due to the network of depots in major French cities, including one in the rue de Rivoli in Paris. These depots supplied the wholesalers and regional retailers, enjoying the brand recognition fostered by highly creative communication. OLIBET goes out of its way to involve many artists in proclaiming the quality of its products.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n \n \n

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Decline and revival<\/h2>\n

In the early twentieth century, the number of competitors grew, and after World War II, the advent of mass retailing posed a threat to OLIBET as its traditional allies, the small local shopkeepers, began to disappear. The company first filed for bankruptcy in June 1977, then went through restructuring and takeovers, until finally being wound up in 2012. Today, six generations after Jean-Honor\u00e9, the OLIBET descendants are out to revive their illustrious ancestors\u2019 biscuits. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n \n \n

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TALKING POINT\u2026<\/h2>\n

Reference works: <\/b>Le Livre d\u2019Or de la Gironde<\/span><\/i>,<\/b> various authors (R. Wagner, 1914), <\/span>Le biscuit et son march\u00e9, <\/span><\/i>Olivier Londeix (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2012), <\/span>Echanges et m\u00e9tissage des cultures mat\u00e9rielles entre la Nouvelle-Aquitaine et les outres-mers, <\/span><\/i>Michel Figeac (Maison des Sciences de l\u2019Homme d\u2019Aquitaine, 2021), <\/span>Demi-Lune, <\/span><\/i>Jean-Marie Pontaut (Fayard, 2005), <\/span>Les Biscuits Pernot<\/span><\/i>, Albert Ricois (Raison & Passions, 2007).<\/span><\/p>\n

Museum exhibits<\/b>: OLIBET is present in the <\/span>Mus\u00e9e d\u2019Histoire Urbaine et Sociale<\/span><\/a> in Suresnes and the <\/span>Mus\u00e9e Aquitaine<\/span><\/a> in Bordeaux.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the media<\/b>: OLIBET on <\/span>radio<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>television<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n \n \n <\/div>\n \n \n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-components.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_mo_disable_npp":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1018","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1023,"href":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1018\/revisions\/1023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biscuitsolibet.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}