Exhibition in Nantes. Lefèvre-Utile, gourmet saga to discover at the Château des Ducs

“A sweet, warm cake scent. ” When she was a high school student, this Nantes girl still remembers that good smell that used to perfume the city on certain days, until the early 1980s. If the LU brand has been closely linked to Nantes since the middle of the XIX^e century, its fame has since gone around the world. Who has not crunched to the teeth in a little schoolboy, devoured the ears of petit-beurre?

This gourmet saga began in 1846 when Jean-Romain Lefèvre moved to Nantes. In 1850, with his wife Pauline-Isabelle Utile, they founded “A la rename” and sold dry cakes just out of the oven. In 1882, their son, Louis Lefèvre-Utile, took over the cookie factory and thought big. Three years later, the company invested in a former spinning mill on the edge of the Saint-Félix canal, on which two flamboyant towers were soon watching over. In 1913, 1,200 workers produced 20 tonnes of cookies every day.

The Château de Nantes recounts this industrial success through “What has always characterized the LU brand: innovation”, underlines Bertrand Guillet, director. First, it translates into research “New forms of cookies”. In 1886, the petit-beurre and its twenty-four punches, in 1906, the golden straw, a stylized wafer topped with raspberry jam. Original sketches, engineers’ recipe books and molds reveal the tests.

The avant-garde spirit of LU can also be seen in these machines designed to produce quickly and well like the one “To recover the egg yolks”, immortalized under the brush of the painter Albert Brenet, whose series shows the organization of the manufacturing workshops.

“A new graphic language”

From paper bags to the most sophisticated boxes, these highly thought-out boxes appeal to foodies. “For Louis Lefèvre-Utile, you have to be seen to please and be bought”, supports Bertrand Guillet. “With it, a new graphic language is born”, continues Olivier Fruneau-Maigret, collector. The brand stands out thanks to the artists who shape its image. In 1897, Firmin Bouisset imagined the figure of the little schoolboy from the portrait of Louis junior, the director’s son. Alfons Mucha wrapped the art nouveau cookies. Their original paintings and drawings are presented in this colorful and playful exhibition.

“Always go further” remains the leitmotif of the company which built for the Universal Exhibition of 1900 in Paris a gigantic pavilion with an LU lighthouse which caused a sensation in front of the Eiffel Tower. The consecration. However, it was not until half a century before the final LU logo in white letters on a red background was created in 1957 by designer Raymond Loewy.

“I can’t find anything better than a little LU: oh yes! two little LUs “, said actress Sarah Bernhardt, her most famous ambassador. A slogan still valid at snack time!

LU, a century of innovation, 1846-1957, at the castle of the dukes of Brittany in Nantes, from June 27 to January 3, 2021.

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