Chocolat Poulain : L’incroyable histoire de celui qui a révolutionné le chocolat – Documentaire AMP

Chocolat Poulain : L’incroyable histoire de celui qui a révolutionné le chocolat – Documentaire AMP

While Poulain chocolate remains
one of the favorite brands of the French, little is known about the story of its discreet
founder, Victor Auguste Poulain. His life was, however, unusual. Born in 1825 in the Centre region,
into a large and very poor family, nothing destined him to become
one of the best chocolatiers and one of the greatest industrialists of his time. It all began in 1825 in Pont-le-Voy,
in the Centre region, a few kilometers from Blois, in the shadow of the Château des Bordes,
where the Count and Countess of Ribeirao lived. A few meters away,
the Ferme des Bordes, on the castle grounds,
is occupied by the future parents of Victor Auguste,
Jeanne-Élise Gallou and Bruno François Poulain,
who manage the farm for Monsieur and Madame de Ribeirao. It was on this farm that
Victor Auguste Poulain was born on February 11, 1825. He was the tenth child
of a family of metalworkers. He started by going,
what in Soloniau is called, to pack, that is to say to lead the geese to the field. Because when you were a little kid,
that was the first thing you could do. We had a large baguette
that we called a dine. He must have been a little lively and his
parents paid him the 3.50 francs he needed to go to school. Each child was obliged to bring
their own log of wood in winter. He was six or seven years old at the time. He walked the three kilometers
from the farm to the village with his log under his arm. He just learned the basics
of writing a little and arithmetic. He stayed at school for just three years. He had to work. And at the age of nine,
he left with a bundle on his shoulder, on foot, to Blairet, which
is still 80, 90 kilometers away. When he was old,
he said he no longer knew whether he was 10 years old and had nine cents in his pocket or whether he
was nine years old and had ten cents in his pocket. So there, he arrives at a grocer’s
in Blairet who takes him on as a clerk. In 1835, after spending two years
in Blairet in Mr. Minier’s grocery store , of which he would keep fond memories
all his life, Auguste Poulain left for Blois to continue his work as a clerk
in another grocery store, which he left at the age of 12, in 1837,
thanks to the Countess of Ribeirao, who knew Auguste Poulain well,
this child whom she had met many times. It is she who will
change his destiny. She wrote him a letter
of recommendation to go up to Paris to a grocer who, at the time,
had a very famous grocery store on the Place de Paris,
which was on rue Monsieur le Prince and which was called Au Mortier d’Argent. He was 13 years old when
he arrived in Paris. It must have been like arriving
in a new world, between the noise of the carriages, the people,
the clothes of the people in the street. He arrives in Paris in front of this shop
which was flashy, with black and gold letters,
with a grocer who was at the time in a blue vest, all the little
clerks in blue vests. And it was a very fashionable grocery store
in Paris, or at least very fashionable. For example, Balzac was a
customer of this grocery store. In this grocery store, not only do they sell
cakes, fine wines, and coffee, but they also make chocolate. Victor Auguste immediately
offered to help the person who made the chocolate outside
of his working hours. It is either in the morning before
the shop opens or in the evening after
the shop closes that he makes this chocolate and helps her. It was not by the taste,
but by the enticing smell, as they say in
La Fontaine’s fables, but it was by the enticing smell that this taste for chocolate was able to be
born in the mind of Victor Auguste Poulain, because this
taste was still quite rustic. At the time, chocolate making
was a very manual process. The chocolate beans must be roasted,
the skin removed and crushed. And then, with a mortar,
hence the name silver mortar of the Parisian grocery store, you have to
grind them and mix them with sugar. It remains extremely basic. The sugar cubes
are not really amalgamated. And when you eat this type of chocolate,
you have both bitterness and sweetness, but they overlap,
but they are not yet bound together. Conching was only invented at the end
of the 19th century by Mr. Lindt. At Mortiers d’Argent,
chocolate sausages were made which were wrapped in
faded paper and kept in a dry place. So, we sold these puddings and at home,
people who could afford them, scraped these chocolate puddings
over a pan of water or a pan of milk and then mixed this
chocolate to make a hot drink which was mainly dedicated
to children, to convalescents. It was what was called a
hygienic drink, a health drink. He puts money aside. He does lots of small jobs. He is probably already busy very early in the morning
, very late in the evening, all day long. And he also does odd jobs. He’s going to embroider slippers to resell,
to make even more money. And he’s going to be a claqueur
at the Ambigu theater. He is a child of paradise. This means that he is right up there
in the flies and he is paid to applaud Frédéric Lemaître, who,
at the time, is triumphing in the roles of Alexandre Dumas. So, we imagine, we have Frédéric Lemaître,
the children of paradise, and among the little children of paradise,
up there in the claqueurs, there is Victor Auguste Poulain. In 1847, he returned to Blois. With the 1,800 francs he had
saved, he rented a commercial space on Rue Porte-Chartraine in Blois to open
a small confectioner’s shop. This house is the birthplace
of Robert Houdin, the famous magician. Is it completely a
coincidence? There is a clash in the history of
Blois, knowing that Robert Houdin was born in the same house and that
Victor Auguste Poulain settled there. Auguste Poulain had just turned 23
when he married Pauline Bagoulard. She is an orphan. They will have three children:
Augustine, Albert and Pauline. They married on Sunday, February 20,
1848, two days before the revolution that would
end the 18-year reign of Louis Philippe, the last king of France. Auguste opens his shop
to make his first chocolates. And it is Pauline who will take care of it,
becoming an indispensable collaborator. Victor Auguste Poulain will always
prioritize the quality of his products. All the grocers in the Blois market
make their own chocolate, but they make chocolates that combine
other products, half healthy, half adulterated. We can find crushed slate,
brown earth, we can find ochre,
we can find chocolate pods. It’s not a
really, really, really engaging product. And on the other hand, chocolate is
also sold in pharmacies. From ferruginous chocolates,
we make fortifying chocolates with tar, we make chocolates with
Vichy salt, we make expectorant chocolates, we make chocolates that
aid digestion, we make fortifying chocolates,
but it is never chocolate for itself as a product. And when we have chocolate for itself
as a product, it is most of the time counterfeited,
because it is still an expensive raw material. So he’s a small chocolatier,
but he uses quality products, doesn’t adulterate his chocolate
and also wants it to be distributed to a larger number of people. It was really in the 19th century that things really
changed, that is to say that chocolate, from a medicine that it was,
became a pleasure product, a confectionery,
something that we taste, not to cure ourselves, but
simply because we want to. He was to create chocolate bites quite early on,
at the beginning of the 1850s, which he advertised. It was he, truly, in the 19th century,
who made the transition from liquid chocolate to solid chocolate
and from the consumption of healthy chocolate to gourmet chocolate. He is truly a
linchpin of this historical passage. Since
Paulin’s very soft milk chocolates have existed, their finesse, their smoothness, their delicacy have
continued to wreak havoc. Very soft milk chocolate from Poulain, the chocolate that softens hearts. You know I like you?
YOU. Other grocers in town will
try to copy Poulain’s products, and Poulain will be forced
to defend himself against this. So he puts out
press announcements to say, for example, that Christmas snacks will
only be sold and marketed seven days before Christmas, so that the competition doesn’t
have time to copy them. He defends himself in the local newspaper. We can clearly see that he is defending himself
and that he wants to show the authenticity of his creations and the
quality of his products. So he begins to say:
Poulain chocolate is one of the best in France. Taste and compare. I don’t think there is a better
advertising slogan, actually. The customer must make up his own mind, he
can go and see the competition if he wants, but he should come back and see Poulain
and then make up his own mind. And that’s a truly brilliant slogan
that will be Poulain’s trademark for almost a century. He invented comparative advertising. Victor Auguste has one obsession:
to move towards industrialization, because for him,
it is a guarantee of product quality. Fortunately,
Pauline Bagoulard has some gifts. She has farms, she has tenancies
and he is going to eat her dowry. Little by little,
he sold all the farms, but each time,
to buy a new grinding machine, the famous
Herrmann grinding machines. Victor Auguste is
a man of the 19th century. He is a man who believes in progress. His little shop, Rue Porte Chartresne,
is on the main street of Blois. This is the main street, it’s
an extremely very narrow shop. He occupied almost all
the available space in his house. There is the grinding which takes place
in the cellar, the manufacturing which takes place on the ground floor, in the courtyard. It quickly becomes too small. Very quickly, he undertook to set up
a crushing company to the east of the city, thus completely out of the way. It’s almost 1.5 kilometers from the
city center, so it’s already quite far. He has warehouses elsewhere,
so it’s all a bit spread out. And it was in 1865 that he decided to
bring everything together and keep only the sales store in the city center. And he will create his factory on the heights
of Blois, which is called the Vilette factory.
He conceived this factory as a castle, perhaps like the residence of the Château
des Bordes of the Countess of Ribéry, who gave him that famous letter
of recommendation at the start of his career. And for him, it’s almost a
complete circle, that is to say, it’s he who becomes the notable
by building this factory. In fact, he gained access to the
local and French upper middle class. He built his house in the center,
like a castle, and created mechanized workshops
on both sides like outbuildings. On July 2, 1864, Pauline,
Auguste’s wife, died. She is 33 years old and has dedicated half
her life to helping Auguste become a great chocolatier. It will not see its consecration with
the completion of the commissioning of the plant which will take place two months later. Gradually, given the success,
other buildings will be installed. All this forms a real little
city within the city. The maximum extension of the factory will occupy
nearly three and a half hectares in the city center. The castle is more, I think,
for advertising purposes too. And that is completely in line with
the chocolate and confectionery factories. We express this through
very attractive architecture. Biscuit and chocolate shops will
very easily have this kind of attractive architecture. And it’s, I think,
as much to have decent accommodation and to show off his success as to make
a publicity gesture which makes him build his castle
right in the middle of the factory. And it is no coincidence that we have
this brick and stone architecture which is somewhat reminiscent of
the castle of Louis XII in Blois. This is no coincidence either. With the little turrets, it looks
a bit like a fairy tale castle. It goes with chocolate, with the
sweet side, with the kind side of chocolate. It’s you, sorry. Your family’s gift.
GOOD. Foal 1848? That’s chocolate. 76 percent cocoa. Deep. Fondant. Exceptional. He remains, Paulino. You wouldn’t have eaten it by any chance? 1848, blacker than you die. A connoisseur, this Paolo. In 1870, Auguste Poulain was 45 years old and a
municipal councilor in Blois. The Franco-Prussian War broke out,
pitting France against the German states united under the aegis of Prussia. It would result in the defeat
of France, the fall of Napoleon III’s empire,
the loss of Alsace and part of Lorraine, and a
significant war debt. At Blois, on December 10,
the French Army blew up the bridge to prevent the 40,000 men of the
enemy army from crossing the river and reaching the city. In retaliation, Blois was bombed. After only three days of fighting,
on December 13, the French army abandoned the city. The mayor of Blois, Auguste Poulain,
and a police commissioner negotiate with the enemy. The passage of Blois is decided. The three parliamentarians were held at
gunpoint while the German army crossed the Loire, in case the slightest
shot was fired by a resident of Blois. The armistice is signed. The mayor having been imprisoned
by the Prussians, it was Auguste Poulain who was responsible for negotiating the debt
imposed on the city by Prussia. Since the age of 15, Albert,
Auguste’s son, and despite his father’s protests,
Albert decided to stop his studies to work in the factory. He oversees manufacturing
and accounting. Eight years later, in 1874, at the age of
25, Albert became his father’s partner. In 1878, the Poulain factory produced
5,000 kilos of chocolate per day. A year later, Albert Poulain purchased an additional
3,500 square meters of land from the city of Blois . For Auguste Poulain, his son is
going too fast and seeing things too big. He prefers to withdraw
and retire. He is 54 years old. In 1884, on the land he had acquired,
Albert Poulain had new buildings constructed which would be
called the Bossejour factory. This is also the time when chocolate
began to become a product accessible to the middle classes, and
even to the working classes. There are many brands
that appear in the second half, rather the end of the 19th century. It’s Meunier, it’s Anger,
it’s all European chocolates. And Poulain will stand out a little from
the others by being extremely offensive, precisely, in advertising. It was really Albert Poulain,
from the moment he became director in 1881, who was going to develop this whole
advertising side, even in the small country grocery stores where the
grocers were given small posters or cardboard supports that the grocer
only had to put in his window. So, he doesn’t have to compose the window display,
we provide him with all the material to decorate his window display. Albert Poulain has this genius of understanding
that he can rely on advertising and on great artists. This is also possible because there is
a whole new class that now knows how to read. With compulsory education,
we have young men and women who know how to read and who
therefore know how to interpret the message and make it understood. Victor Auguste Poulain had started
to put small images, but the process would really
intensify with the arrival of his son Albert, so from 1874
and especially in the 1880s, he created slightly
more elongated image shapes which surrounded the top of the sausage in the tablets. And above all, it creates this notion of desire,
that is to say that they will create stories. Children want to know
the end of the story. It’s a comic strip, cut out. Children spend their time cutting out
pictures, pasting them into albums and then leafing through albums. So, based on what he knows is
an attraction for children, Poulain distributes free
series of images in his products and series which are replaced
every six weeks. This means that every six weeks,
we have ten new series coming out. So, it’s still
at a fairly sustained pace. So we’re going to buy chocolate
to get the complete series. And the subjects are infinitely varied. We have the countries of Europe, we have the currencies,
we have the stamps, the great men. So all of this will
contribute enormously to the reputation of Poulain chocolate and its development. Others of the time used this same
process, but at Poulain, it would take on a crazy proportion,
since Poulain would be the only brand to have its own integrated printing house,
its own integrated illustrators. And in 1900,
there were 70 people working at the Poulain printing house in Blois and they
produced 350,000 images a day in this Poulain
printing house, which were distributed on tablets. Poulain’s genius lies
in his focus on childhood in advertising. Obviously, it is not the child himself
who buys the chocolate, but it is he who asks his parents to buy some. And all the publicity,
all the advertising will play on that. The posters feature children. Everything we distribute
in Poulain products is aimed primarily at children. In these years,
schooling becomes important. The Jules Ferry laws made school
compulsory, and everyone in families is eager for their children to
succeed and learn lots of things. And so Poulain slips into this current
and says to himself: Let’s teach children a lot of things. It is possible that Poulain, in fact,
was keen to develop culture and education,
having himself had to leave school quite early, it is possible that he was tempted
to give as many people as possible access to knowledge. I’m
going to introduce you to a writing competition that was launched by Poulain in 1904. This competition consisted of asking
children to write the Poulain slogan in different fonts
, including round, cursive, and bastard. This competition had a prize
of 50,000 francs at the time for the winner. Grandma, which Basque sport
was an Olympic discipline? Knitting, darling. Yes, a very beautiful cross stitch.
Well done. He fixes the thread and attempts a slip stitch.
And it passes. Gorgeous. The Poulain collectible images
are back. Find them quickly
in Les Chocolats Poulain. Well, kids, do you remember
yesterday I had you do some research on the internet about a
famous person here in your town? Do you
remember which character? Why is he famous in Pont-de-Voy? Lea? Because he was born in Pont-le-Voy and he
built a chocolate factory in Vaud. Alright. Is chocolate
something you like? Yes. So, how do you like it?
Olé. Olé. We now know that
sweetness is the universal flavor. That is to say, a baby who is born on this
planet, the first thing he will like is softness. Afterwards, you have to know that all
the other flavors, I mean all the other flavors,
are acquired flavors, are cultural flavors. So the taste for bitterness
is cultural. The taste for acidity is cultural. My great-grandparents
gave me a really strong dark chocolate. It was Mom and Dad who finished. By nature, human beings will
universally love what is fatty and sweet. Cocoa is a product that is
fatty and it is a product that is sweet. So we flatter
two functions which are primitive. In the contemporary mind and imagination
, chocolate is still this sweet, melting, creamy side. You almost melt. This is childish regression. If Marie-Christine Clément knows so
well the history of chocolate and the secrets of taste, it is certainly through interest
in Auguste Poulain but also through a common passion for chocolate
that she shares with her husband, Didier Clément, Michelin-starred chef at the Lion d’Or,
the hotel restaurant that they run together in Rome-Orientin,
in the Centre region. The Aztecs already used
chocolate as a spice. And it was also
a basic ingredient for savory dishes. So later, in the 18th, 18th, 18th century,
in the use of chocolate, it was made into a dessert,
a rather sweet and sugary drink, whereas the primary principle
of cocoa is bitterness. So afterwards, it is a control of this
bitterness with degrees of sugar which can be more or less important. In the kitchen, it can be interesting
to use with Just Enough. It ‘s all a question of dosage
and harmony, because it’s not about making a chocolate lobster. I don’t find it of major interest,
but I also happen to use cocoa in waistcoat dishes,
more predominantly. So to thicken a sauce,
to enhance a flavor, an aroma on the product, notably on
a hare leg in cocoa sauce. If we only use hare à la royale,
but with an exotic note, a little extravagant sometimes.
That’s interesting. I have been doing this job of passion
for over 40 years now. And I remember that when I started,
we made 300 gram sweet pastry creams. Today we go down to 150 grams. That is to say, we have divided the sugar
in half, which means that we have a perception of sweetness. If we also want to preserve the taste
of the surrounding ingredients, if they are overwhelmed by sugar,
we lose flavor and precision of tasting. So, the palate is made,
it must be trained, educated. It’s an instrument, a tool,
we consider it that way, so we have to maintain it too. I was raised on Poulain chocolate,
because I am a native of Blois. I lived in a neighborhood
where when the wind was positioned over the city in a certain way,
it would aromatize the whole city. And it was quite extraordinary
because we went to school in the morning with the smell of Poulain chocolate
hanging over the city of Blois. So that is something that is
at a moment that is insurmountable. It will stay in my memory forever. I used instant chocolate
for small chocolate brooms because it is also a little nod
to local references, to the taste of childhood,
to local heritage. That is part of the heritage,
Poulain chocolate, in the history of Loir-et-Chère and the Centre region. Poulain’s milk chocolate
is twice as creamy. Poulain’s milk chocolate
is twice as creamy. So, twice as tender. So, twice as tender. And twice as creamy. And twice as creamy. Pardon. Creamy foal is
more like twice as much as once. Creamy foal is
more like twice as much as once. In 1893, the factory had 240 workers. Albert Poulain created a public limited company
with four partners, chosen for their management skills. Under this new impetus,
production increased from 1,500 tonnes of chocolate per year in 1893
to 11,000 tonnes in 1917. Albert Poulain withdrew from the management
of the chocolate factory to create a factory in 1898 producing all kinds of biscuits
and notably invented Le Conquérant, a biscuit intended to compete with
Petit Beurre from Lefèvre-Utile in Nantes. So the Foals remain in the business,
but the factory is now entrusted to managers. Here, we move from a
family saga to the saga of a brand. Which does not mean that the brand does not
continue this kind of emotional connection with the French population. At that time, chocolate was mainly used as breakfast chocolate. It took some time. And so, we try to imagine a
more convenient way to melt this chocolate. Powdered cocoa has
been around for a long time. Vanuuten invented it in 1829,
so it’s not recent. But what Poulain was going to invent
was the instant dissolution of the powder in milk. So But first, it was necessary to stir,
it was necessary to melt. It was quite complicated. With the Poulain instant,
you actually get a cup of hot chocolate right away. And so, to spread this image
of the pulverized Poulain, the directors of Poulain at the time
turned to Capiello, who would invent the image of the Little Poulain. It was Capiello,
who was a very famous poster artist at the time , who stylized this
slightly mischievous little foal that we see from behind, running,
as if he had just stolen a bar of chocolate that he had in his
jaws with a little girl who was wearing a red dress. This poster is extremely modern,
extremely strong and visually extraordinary. The spray packaging is orange,
so we have an orange horse. This is a completely
absurd invention, bordering on Capiello, but it will work perfectly,
since the orange color will remain Poulain’s trademark for years. He decided to buy movie theaters,
cinema being in its infancy at the time, and so he decided to use
this new medium to advertise Poulain. At the time, cinema was not
shown in permanent locations. It is projected onto sheets,
onto fairgrounds. Cinema is a fairground attraction
. At the time, there was a Mr. Pathé who
began to invest in permanent locations. And with this Mr. Pathé,
it is the Poulain brand that will be the first to go and identify old
theater locations in all the major cities of France that can be
transformed into screening venues. Having cinemas, it shows films,
some of which are advertising films about Poulain, and above all,
one acquires cinema tickets by purchasing Poulain products. So that’s
something absolutely awesome. It was a bet on something
extremely popular to sell chocolate. That is the true Poulain spirit. The first movie theaters,
particularly in Algeria, Turkey and Cairo, were Poulain cinemas. Without the war of 1914,
Poulain would have become one of the largest film distributors in France. This also clearly shows the
extra-European diffusion of the Poulain brand. It’s really a brand, and besides,
Capiello, in his poster, says it: Poulain chocolate floods the world. Chocolate is flooding the world. This clearly shows Poulain’s
extremely aggressive attitude to gain
market share across the planet. In the event of war, and even
today, the chocolate industry is
automatically requisitioned in the same way as arms manufacturers. It is the only industry outside
of heavy industry that is requisitionable. Marshal Joffre had noticed that in
1870 the Germans had been particularly
valiant and fierce in battle, and he had learned that the
German soldiers had chocolate rations on them. And he said to himself: Well, actually, the
victory is due to the chocolate ration. We must give chocolate
to our soldiers. So in 14, they thought the war
would only last a few months. They all left with
their ration of chocolate. And so, the Poulain factory, in 1914,
had to produce only chocolate for the French army. And she put smaller squares
in these tin boxes that the soldiers wore on their belts. And it was written on these
tin boxes: To be opened only on order. We imagine soldiers
who could be in the trenches, who must have died of hunger at some point. Some people must have opened
the chocolate and perhaps eaten it without the orders
that might have been given to them. But there are some who, after 1918,
returned home with this ration of chocolate that they kept at home
and only opened much later. And I found in the archives
some small postcards that had been inserted by the Poulain brand,
saying to the bearer: Please report to us on the condition of the chocolate to see
if this conservation was effective. And as soon as you have consumed this
chocolate, send us this postcard immediately. There is one, in particular,
which is very touching, which says that he only opened it in 1942. So, we think that in 1942,
he was also in need and that he was very happy to open this famous ration
of chocolate which had been given to him in 1914. There are little boxes to tick. Is chocolate still good? Was the chocolate still in good condition? And he ticks: Yes, yes. And at the bottom, he added in the margin:
I carried this chocolate throughout the war, the four years
of the war from 1914 to 1918. I brought it home, I didn’t open it
until 1942 and it was still very good. And there is another one who has it
much later, in 1951, and he gives me all my congratulations. Please accept, Sir,
my distinguished greetings. On July 8, 1918, at 10:00 p.m.,
four months before the armistice, an accidental fire broke out
in the Poulain factory, in the Bossejour building,
one of the oldest in the chocolate factory. It took two days to clear
the fire, which was fueled by huge quantities of cocoa, sugar,
wooden floors and grease-soaked equipment. The flames reach
up to 100 meters high. Auguste Poulain witnessed this drama
from the windows of his castle. He is 93 years old and sees
his life’s work go up in smoke. He will not recover from this. He died three weeks
later, on July 30, 1918. After the fire, the brand modernized its
factory and thus increased its profitability. Poulain chocolate’s advertising efforts
are increasing, even in schools, always targeting children. It is undoubtedly the
chocolate brand that will have invested the most massively in advertising. Later in its history, Poulain,
always cultivating the ambition to remain a great popular brand,
would become one of the main partners of the Tour de France. On the verges,
everyone had Poulain badges, Poulain caps,
little Poulain pennants, and had little Poulain chocolate bars
that were thrown around by cars. It’s a lot of things like this that made
Poulain quickly become one of the favorite brands of the French,
and which still remains a brand known and appreciated by the French. This extra dark chocolate,
with its very strong orange-yellow coating , was also the
dark chocolate of the snack of the little French. We gave a piece of bread and we
gave some of this Poulain dark chocolate, which is a chocolate that made a big
impression, because it was a dark chocolate, but it was smooth. And it was dark chocolate. It is the first dark chocolate to
which cocoa butter was added. No, no, no.
Soon it’s for you. This is what it takes to make
the pennies grow. Honorable mother, why ca
n’t I eat this spread? Because it’s Poulina, light, big,
with an infinitely delicate consistency,
with delicious light cereals. But ?
There is no I put you. You will be able to enjoy Poulina Léger
like our respectable friends when you have reached the weight of a real sub-word. Honorable mother,
I don’t want to become subservient anymore. Poulina Léger, for all
the honorable scrubs. Or almost. We thought it would be interesting to get
in touch with Gilles Cresneau, a young French artisan chocolatier who has
won several awards. Based in Hauts-de-Seine,
he set up his own business at the same age as Auguste Poulain, at 23. He already has three stores. How does Gilles Cresneau see his
future in the current context? Does he imagine a possible
industrial development? Could he, for example, imagine himself following
in the footsteps of Auguste Poulain? Today, we have a manufacturing process
that is completely artisanal. Just with the demand we have,
the development we are experiencing, we have, between the first year of operation
and the last year of operation, had a turnover that has been
multiplied by 60, which is not nothing. So, we could ask ourselves: Would
we one day be obliged to move to an industrial stage,
if we project ourselves in 10 or 20 years? It will really be a choice to make,
because it is something that I do not want. And so, choice number one,
we stop development. Or, another possibility,
we say to ourselves: We have a demand that is there, but we will have to take a site
of several thousand square meters to be able to expand the chocolate factory
as demand increases. Something we cannot do today
because we are within walls that cannot be pushed. And there, this is our adventure. The industry has a very long cycle. He will manufacture. It also has large stocks
in anticipation of certain periods. We then move on to
large-scale distribution. All of this is a cycle
that is quite long. He will therefore adapt his recipes,
have recipes which will therefore be a priori less good because they must
contain more sugar, because they keep better. And then afterwards, perhaps at the
industrial level, the requirements are not the same. What we try to do
is create emotion with a superb product and
, despite everything, we will simply sell this product. We are not in the cosmetics business where we have
some kind of cream that we are going to enhance with beautiful packaging,
a campaign, a muse, etc. This is what allows you to sell
anything by magnifying it with packaging. Chocolate is something
that industrializes very well, so we could very well imagine
tomorrow finding excellent products made by manufacturers . So, that’s not true even
today to my knowledge. Freshness,
preservation and the quality of the recipe and the process for implementing it
really depend on these three factors. As a craftsman, I find that we
really stand out from the industry. I swear on my mother’s head that
although Poulain Light, the new Poulain Tasting chocolate
, does not contain an atom of sugar, it is truly delicious.
Jeans. Thank you Jean. Sugar-free light foal? Unbelievable, but really good. After various acquisitions,
Poulain chocolate was sold to Cadbury Schweppes in 1988,
then to the American company Kraft Foods in 2010. Today,
the brand belongs to the Mondelaise International group, which was
split from the Kraft Foods group. In 1990, the Cadbury Schweppes group,
then owner of the brand, decided to build a modern factory
a few kilometers from Blois, abandoning the old site which was deemed obsolete. This is a historic turning point
for Poulain chocolate and for the city of Blois. The factory has been abandoned for five years. Olivier Breton joined us in 1941, after
a lifetime of working in chocolate. Me, if I get there,
a nostalgia, a disgust, a nausea, to see all this falling into
ruins, now. A big part
of my life is going away. When you’ve worked
in a company for more than 40 years, it helps you. We learned that Poulain was moving
from the city center to the outskirts of Blois, so it was a good
decision since it kept jobs. You could say that socially
and economically it was a positive decision, if you like. But at the same time, as Poulain had
settled next to the castle, in the city center, on the plateau, we
said to ourselves: But what is going to happen? What will be built there? And how do we protect
the site? One, to protect it from the castle,
so that we don’t have buildings that disfigure the landscape, and at the same time,
to protect the site perhaps by keeping this trace of the 19th century,
which is perhaps as important as all the others. We’ll keep the castle first,
it’s a classic. Well, okay, it’s in the center,
that’s good, it’s on its base. And then there was another
industrial building which was made of concrete, very beautiful, with posts which had
capitals waiting to eventually place beams on these
capitals if we needed to create
an intermediate floor one day. So, we put the landscape school in these
buildings which are remarkable in terms of a concrete-metal mix. And then afterwards, we kept another one
which is a bit like a panoramic view of the Loire and on this base,
we built new housing. So, we didn’t keep all
the industrial buildings. It was not necessary to keep everything. There was nothing we could have done about it. We killed
two birds with one stone, if you will. On the one hand,
building a new factory designed by an architect I know
well, Jean Nouvel, and on the other, preserving
the industrial buildings in the city centre for different purposes. We decided to keep
the memory twice. The memory of buildings
in the heart of the city, and keeping the memory
of Poulain alive through the perpetuation of a production activity. This part of Blois is still
relatively small in size, and we have tried
to bring the different centuries and periods together,
but without ever giving in to the temptation of destruction. It’s so easy to destroy. Destroying the industrial building
is like negation in history. We cannot engage in
architectural negationism. I really think that living human urbanism
must ensure a kind of historical continuity. And in 81, I must say that I classified
everything because I myself had been shocked,
hurt, outraged by the destructurist destruction that
previous governments had carried out on our heritage of the 19th or 20th centuries. The destruction, for example, of the Halles de
Baltard during the time of President Pompidou. You can’t keep everything,
you can’t demolish everything. That’s how it is. So we have to find the right balance
between what one generation should keep and what it should eventually transform, and
pass on to the next generation without keeping everything. But there must at least be this
passage, there must be no rupture. Stand up, children! Stand up, children! Standing
! For the great aroma. Thank you, Mom.
Thank you, Mom. Oh, you’re welcome, kids. In 1994, a new marketing director arrived at Poulain,
named Marc Baraban. So, he quickly came to the conclusion
that this brand was basically a brand
of chocolate for children. This famous Little Foal,
drawn by Capiello in 1904, was associated with a little girl in
a little red dress in a field, and this communication has continued. Then we introduced There’s this little
foal on the brand, and so, imperceptibly, the brand
became a brand aimed at children. Until the day Marc Baraband arrived and
said: Well, if we want to get out of our small child-like positioning,
if we want to go further, we have to expand towards adults.
And how do we do it? We thought of the
Victor Auguste Poulain brand. That’s a great idea. So we said to ourselves: We’re going to work
with Victor Auguste Poulain. So, Victor Auguste Poulain. On a bar of chocolate,
the letters will be this big, so they will be illegible. So, in three lines,
Victor Auguste Poulain. Oh yeah, that’s not going to work either. It’s going to take up too much space. And it was us
who recommended 1848. Victor, Auguste, Poulain,
he started in 1848. Well, let’s take 1848,
which made a new product line that
grew tremendously. They have taken 15 percent
market share in three years. A market they weren’t in. So it was a real, real success. And we told the story behind it,
on the back of the tablet. The story was told in 1848,
Victor Auguste Poulain created the chocolate factory in Blois.
And there you have it. He was revived,
not by calling him Victor August Poulain, but by saying
1848, which basically said the same thing. Then it also said
know-how, a tradition. More than 150 years of know-how. He changed the
brand’s positioning. It’s not simple. And he did it without
damaging the brand. He didn’t break anything. We weren’t going to cut off the little
foal’s head, but we were going to say: The little foal, we’re going to use it
on children’s products. There was a real expectation
from adults to move towards this brand, but they were just waiting for the products. There, we managed to continue selling to
children and we sold to adults. And that is an achievement.
I love chocolate. I like chocolate. I love chocolate. I love chocolate like mom.
I eat it every day. We love chocolate. Either white chocolate,
dark chocolate, or coffee chocolate. I’ve gotten to know this chocolate as I’ve gotten older
and I find it delicious. It’s a religion, even. We are at the Salon du Chocolat,
created 21 years ago, which is an incredible event. It’s a big
chocolate festival every year. There are more than 100,000
visitors over four days. This is an absolute record,
especially since this show now has spin-offs all over the world. When we started, there
were a few craftsmen. Today, there are more than 500
listed in France and 500 who must have talent and above all who have
customers who do not hesitate to spend sometimes large sums
to buy real chocolate. Manufacturers,
thanks to the success of craftsmen, thanks to the success of the quality
of craftsmen, have significantly improved their products. Today, we find industrial
chocolates in supermarkets ,
high-quality bars. There is the percentage of cocoa
written on it, so we know where we are going: 60%, 70%, 80%. Then, both industrialists
and craftsmen improved. We created laboratories with a It is
a quality that starts from the bean. And the bean is very different depending on whether it
comes from one island or another, from one country or another. And that’s how, little by little,
French chocolate has continued to improve with dark,
milk and blends. The chocolate was Belgian or Swiss. He became French. We tasted more than 800 chocolates
during the year and you will discover the essential chocolatiers. I call in order of appearance,
Sadharouk Aoki, from Paris. Gilles Crénaau, from Rueil-Malmaison. We have a ranking of French chocolatiers
which is carried out every year by the Club des croqueurs de chocolat, and so,
for three years, we have had the highest distinction which is the Ward, which is awarded
to only a few chocolatiers. The Ward, which is a bit like what
Michelin stars are to restaurateurs, since there is
n’t really an equivalent in chocolate. They deserve all your applause
because they work year-round, day and night, to
provide us with good chocolate. It’s been two years now that we’ve
received this award, and that we’re considered a must-have. This is what we have been
the Poulain brand for a very long time. It has existed for a very long time. It was when we were little,
we had it on a slice of toast. In the middle of a loaf,
they cut the bread in half and gave us a Poulain chocolate bar. And there we were, our four o’clock. The Poulain brand, of course,
is our childhood. Pictures when we were little
on tablets. What it reminds me of
is the slightly rust-colored box, the slightly darker top, and the horse. The horse.
The horse, yes. Colt, what. But no, but it’s a bit old. When I invest in a
heritage brand like this, I consider that I have a responsibility. A responsibility towards our
history, towards us, the French, who have lived with these brands for
generations and generations. It’s important, we can’t
do just anything. And I think that even if it belongs
to an American group, today, tomorrow, it
may belong to a Chinese group. It will remain Poulain and will be
one of the French people’s favorite brands. Our brands are our brands,
our roots. When I was at school and my grandmother
took the chocolate bar, made me a little slice of bread
with butter and scraped the… Because at the time,
there was no other way. She used to make little
chocolate shavings like that on my toast, but it’s a wonderful memory. Well, those were great times. And that is Proust’s Madeleine. Well, we’ve heard a lot about it,
but I would say Poulain chocolate shavings from Patrick Vécières. For me, it’s the same. There are moments like that
of emotion, of pleasure from our childhood or not from our childhood,
when we are adults too, when we don’t want to sweep a glass away with our
hands saying: Look, I have a Chinese brand that has arrived, etc.
Well no. Miraculously, 150 years later, there
are still people buying it every day. It’s still fabulous. So it’s a real heritage. I believe that heritage brands must absolutely be protected
because they have inestimable value. The hen for the hen for the good, the best
that this, such as this for the.

Une marque culte, un destin oublié… 👋 + de documentaires histoire 👉 http://bit.ly/3lqyFpY 🙏 Abonnez vous !

00:00 – L’enfance de Victor-Auguste Poulain
03:30 – Premiers pas à Paris et découverte du chocolat
07:00 – Retour à Blois et création de la première boutique
10:40 – L’obsession de la qualité face à la concurrence
12:30 – L’usine de la Villette : un château pour le chocolat
15:00 – La guerre, la politique et la perte de Pauline
18:00 – Albert Poulain : publicité et industrialisation
21:00 – L’invention des images à collectionner
26:30 – Révolution du chocolat en poudre et cinéma publicitaire
30:45 – Le rôle du chocolat Poulain pendant la guerre
34:00 – Fin de l’ère Victor-Auguste Poulain
36:30 – Héritage, rachat et modernisation de la marque
41:00 – Le patrimoine industriel de Blois préservé
44:00 – La stratégie marketing des années 1990
47:00 – Le chocolat aujourd’hui : entre tradition et innovation
50:00 – Pourquoi Poulain reste un mythe français

Si le chocolat Poulain compte toujours parmi les marques préférées des Français, on connaît peu l’histoire de son discret fondateur, Victor-Auguste Poulain. Sa vie fut pourtant singulière.

Né en 1825 en région Centre, au sein d’une famille nombreuse très pauvre, rien ne le destinait à devenir un des meilleurs chocolatiers et un des plus grands industriels de son époque.

👉 A voir également sur Notre Histoire :
DGSE, armement et pouvoir : quand l’État manipule – L’affaire Clearstream https://youtu.be/Uh4-1fn-CF4
Politique : Comment la Ve République a façonné la culture en France ? https://youtu.be/X8Q2AW-FJXs

“LA BELLE HISTOIRE DU CHOCOLAT POULAIN”
Réalisation : Eric Bitoun
©AMP

#ChocolatPoulain #DocumentaireHistoire #VictorAugustePoulain
#HistoireIndustrielle #PatrimoineFrançais #SuccessStory
#Chocolat #Publicité