Ladurée Paris Royale - Pastry Shop

Ladurée Paris Royale, the beginning of the company In 1862, Louis Ernest Ladurée, born in Paris on February 21, 1836, a miller by trade, opened a bakery at 16 rue Royale. At the time, the Madeleine was a business district where French luxury products were sold. The baker became a "pastry chef." Following a fire caused by the Commune riots in 1871, the bakery was rebuilt and transformed into a pastry shop. Under the Second Empire, Jeanne Souchard, wife of Ernest Ladurée, son of Louis Ernest, and daughter of a Rouen hotelier, blended the art of the Parisian café with that of pastry-making. The expansion of the pastry shop on rue Royale In 1930, a salon opened on the first floor of 16 rue Royale in Paris. After the Liberation of Paris in 1944, Pierre Desfontaines, a cousin of Ernest Ladurée, took over the business, which was in decline due to a lack of raw materials. The creation of the "macaron" He revived the activity and invented the Parisian macaron in 1960 with the help of his pastry chef Marcel Thébert. They decided to incorporate cocoa into the Italian meringue (shell), add a chocolate ganache between the two shells, and then offer flavors like coffee and raspberry. The new owner: the Holder Group In 1993, David Holder and his father Francis, founder of the Holder Group, acquired and developed the Ladurée company. Three years later, the company reported a turnover of 24 million francs and employed 140 people. Pierre Hermé became Ladurée’s head pastry chef. In 1997, two boutiques opened in Paris, one on Avenue des Champs-Élysées decorated by Jacques Garcia and the other on Rue Bonaparte decorated by Roxane Rodriguez. In 2006, a boutique was established at Harrods in London, also decorated by Roxane Rodriguez. Pierre Hermé left the group the following year and was succeeded by Philippe Andrieu. From the 2000s onward, the brand invested in diversifying its products. In March 2021, Ladurée sold 100% of its shares to the LOV group, owned by Stéphane Courbit. In April 2021, Julien Alvarez, former chef at Le Bristol Paris, became Ladurée’s international executive chef. At the end of 2021, Mélanie Carron also joined the adventure as CEO. Appointed CEO of the Maison Ladurée. Ladurée’s production sites Ladurée operates several production sites, including one in France and its main site in Switzerland. In 2010, the company acquired a 2.05-hectare plot in Enney, in the municipality of Bas-Intyamon, in the canton of Fribourg, Switzerland, and invested 20 million Swiss francs to open the “Swiss Macaron Factory,” a production and research site, at the end of 2011. The laboratory produces the macarons sold outside Europe and, since 2020, those for the six Parisian boutiques. The pastries intended for the shops in the Paris region, as well as viennoiseries, ice creams, and confectionery, are produced in the 2,000 m² laboratory located in Morangis, in the Essonne department. Fresh pastries are made daily in local bakeries.