The sad story of Bertrand Frères

Bertrand Frères is one of the ‘hidden perfumeries’ in my blog here. Founded by the eponymous brothers, its factory was from 1865 at avenue Font-Laugière at the top of the Riou Blanquet valley. The site was extended significantly over the succeeding years, with a new wing built in the 1920s to the design of Grasse’s ‘go to’ architect of the time, Léon le Bel.

But like so many such factories in the town itself, the restricted location combined with the need to implement new technologies meant that a new site, in this case using the then-new extraction process by volatile solvents, became a necessity.

Bertrand Frères owned a rose plantation on the Plan de Grasse, on the road to Plascassier, and so the new facility was built there, also designed by Léon le Bel and constructed in the 1920s. The company was successful, and the new site was regularly extended right up until the 1990s. The old Font-Laugière site ceased operations in the 1980s and is now apartments, Résidence Roses de Mai.

Former entrance to Betrand Frères, today Résidence Roses de Mai

The fifties and sixties saw many Grasse perfumeries either consolidated into larger businesses (Charabot by Robertet, Bruno Court by Mane and Berenger fils by Molinard, for example) or taken over by big chemical companies looking to expand into fragances and flavours (Mero & Boyveau bought by Sanofi or CAL by Pfizer). While the consolidation under larger, locally managed and controlled businesses like Mane and Robertet has worked very well and generated world-class enterprises, many of the other changes have resulted in closures or continued existence as subsidiaries of big corporations with no great local commitment.

Bertrand Frères was in the latter category, but fared even worse in the end. Unlike others, it remained independent until 1967, but its progress after that reflects what can happen when local control lapses.

In 1967 Bertrand Frères was acquired by the giant Anglo-Dutch consumer goods corporation Unilever as part of its Proprietary Perfumes Ltd business, based in the UK; it became “Bertrand Frères PPL”. In 1977, it was then further merged into a Unilever entity known as Proprietary Perfume and Flavours, so the company name duly became “Bertrand Frères PPF”. Then in 1987, Unilever bought Naarden, a Dutch and international supplier of flavours and fragrances, and merged it with PPF to create a new entity called Quest. This time, the Bertrand Frères name just disappeared.

Quest itself was sold by Unilever in 1997 to Imperial Chemical Industries, a British bulk chemicals giant which quite unsuccessfully tried to re-invent itself as a manufacturer of speciality chemicals. The Quest business was sold on to Givaudan in 2005, but in the meantime, the Bertrand Frères business had been sold to Biolandes in 1998. Ironically, Biolandes is very similar to several successful Grasse perfumeries – an independent and family owned producer of aromatic plant extracts used in perfumery, well-being and nutrition, with a strong local identity, in its case in the Landes region of south-west France. In 2006, it abruptly ceased activities at the route de Plascassier site and appears to have transferred all the machinery elsewhere.

The site still exists, but in a near-derelict state, as you can see:

Part of the site (left) with For Sale sign, which refers interested parties to Biolandes; entrance gate (right): the old company sign is still (just about) visible on close examination

Judging by the 'For Sale' sign, Biolandes still harbours hope of selling it. There have been recurrent attempts to rehabilitate it, including with state financing, but nothing has happened, despite the Mairie’s best efforts.

Mourachonne stream, here strongly incised into its bed, but still potentially dangerous if water were really to flood out of the hills

The problem appears to be at least in part the Mourachonne stream which runs next to the site and presents a significant danger of flooding. The Mourachonne is fed by the waters of the Rossignol valley, so paradoxically a physical feature which was crucial to the growth of Grasse is perhaps blighting the potential of a significant site on the Plan de Grasse.

A sorry tale which indicates the crucial importance of local management and control in a specialist industrial sector like Grasse’s flavours and fragrances.

June 2025 Update

When I wrote this blog in June last year, I didn’t know that the Biolandes site had already been sold to a public investment fund known as the EPF-PACA, or that in late 2023, the EPF signed an agreement with Givaudan SA for it to develop the site.

Givaudan, a Swiss company which is one of the world’s largest fragrance and flavourings businesses, has recently announced its intentions, with the flood risks of the site apparently resolved.  The plan is to establish a big new research and innovation facility. Most of the existing buildings will be demolished but those on the historic register from the time of Bertrand Frères and Leon Le Bel, and including the chimney, are expected to remain.

The site will be part of Givaudan’s ‘House of Naturals’ business unit, established in 2024 to concentrate its capabilities in natural ingredients.  It seems the company sees its investment in Grasse as a way of tapping our area’s expertise.  Locally, it owns Expressions Parfumées in Mouans Sartoux, and the group CEO, on Givaudan’s website, says that it plans to be ‘a big player in the naturals space’.

(Top) The Chimney and some of the buildings around it should remain (perhaps even including a small museum). (Bottom) The site still looks as it did a year ago, with plenty of natural vegetation which will doubtless go!

Givaudan has strong roots in Grasse, going back to the Antoine Chiris business .  The heritage page of its website here starts with the words ‘Our roots go back 250 years to Grasse, France, where perfume was used to offset odours from the tanning process in glove-making. There, in 1768, Antoine Chiris transformed his passion for perfume from an artisanal business into an empire.’  

The corporate history is very convoluted but along the way Givaudan’s predecessor companies acquired not only Chiris but also Roure-Bertrand, Grasse’s two largest businesses before the Great War.  It even narrowly escaped including the Bertrand Frères company, which was sold to Biolandes shortly before Givaudan bought its parent, Quest, from Unilever in 2007.

The eclipse of Bertrand Frères remains a sad story, but seeing Givaudan investing significantly in Grasse and making use of an abandoned brownfield site in the process is a promising sign for the future.