Fauchon

Founded in 1886 in Paris, Fauchon is a French gourmet food and delicatessen company. Fauchon is considered a major reference in contemporary French gourmet foods, and has 76 outlets in around twenty countries in 2016.

The founder of the Fauchon brand, Auguste Fauchon, was born in Calvados in 1856. He moved to Paris in 1880, where he began to work as a street vendor, moving on to become a wine and spirits merchant. In 1886, at the age of 30, he opened a fine foods outlet on Place de la Madeleine in central Paris's 8th arrondissement. This first shop still exists, and was totally renovated over a century of expansion and transformation.

The quality of the products made by Fauchon and its numerous approved suppliers quickly made it well-known internationally, and it came to symbolise French-style luxury. In 1968, French radicals chose to raid Fauchon and distribute foie gras to the poor. During the Second World War, restrictions and rationing made business difficult for the company. Auguste Fauchon died in 1945 and his children sold the company in 1952.

In 1952, Joseph Pilosoff, the former owner of "Chocolat Poulain", "Ciseaux d'argent" in Saint-Cloud and "Aux 100000 chemises" in Paris, took over Fauchon and built up a partnership with Air France. He also expanded the name abroad, opening new Fauchon outlets including in Japan at Takashimaya department stores in 1972. When Joseph Pilosoff died in 1981, his daughter took over at the head of the company. However, she too died soon thereafter, in December 1985, in a fire on the company premises.

In 1986, Joseph Pilosoff's granddaughter, Martine, and her husband, Philippe Prémat, became the owners of Fauchon. Martine Prémat's management proved difficult. Turnover had been flat since the beginning of the decade at around 250 million French francs (some €38 million), with losses of FF5 million in 1991, FF4.7 million in 1993 and FF11.9 million in 1996, and debt standing at FF73 million (€11 million) and a negative net equity of FF4.9 million.

The company strategy to sell its products in mass-market superstore chains such as Carrefour and Auchan, was sharply criticised, and the management was reproached with running the risk of spoiling the company's image, making it commonplace, and was also criticised for making management errors.

Despite attempts to expand the group in the 1990s by opening shops in Geneva and Saudi Arabia – only to close them a few years later – or by sponsoring the Paris Dakar rally, Martine Prémat finally sold the company to Laurent Adamowicz for FF240 million (€36.6 million) in March 1998, including the freehold of the buildings on Place de la Madeleine, sold the following year.

Former investment banker, graduate of business school and also experienced in the field of luxury products, Laurent Adamowicz positioned the brand on the gourmet foods market. He launched new products and ad campaigns, renovated points of sale, withdrew the brand from mass-market outlets and renovated the historical Tea Salon on Place de la Madeleine. He started a new partnership with Air France, and promoted young pastry chef, like Pierre Hermé, Sébastien Godard, Christophe Adam, Dominique Ansel.

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Wikipedia