• Welcome Verfeuille
• The history of a trademark
• Our tasty specialties
• The sweet chestnut, a love story
• The head filled with projects...

We recommend you

Honey made in garrigues area
250g jar
7.05 €

Telling the story of the making of Verfeuille is a long story, one of those stories which, in the old times, were appreciated in front of the fireplace during the long winter-nights in the Cévennes, while eating roasted sweet chestnuts.

Verfeuille company was born in the beginning of the 1990's as a result of the meeting and the joint convictions of four local producers from the Cevennes : Denis Pit, Jean-Pierre Benoit, Daniel Mathieu and myself, Alain Brasseur. But, let's take the story from it's beginning...

Chapter I - The 1970's : the artists arrives.

The very beginning is actually in the late 1960's and the beginning of the 1970's. At this time we did not know each other yet. Denis Pit was already living in the Cévennes, whereas Daniel Mathieu was a fashion photographer, Jean-Pierre Benoit an engineer of the French school Ponts et Chaussées, and me myself also a fashion photographer in Paris.

Rapidly, in some years, we all decided to move to the Cévennes, in search of a better life. At this time we raised goat, sheep and some horses. We also had beehives, orchards, raspberry bushes and of coarse, chestnuts. We also took advantage of the natural treasures of the Cévennes : mushrooms, wild berries... We sold most of our production on the local markets.

Chapter II - The 1980's : the first common project.

The Cévennes are beautiful, but it is not always easy to work in this region. It is difficult to mechanize the labor on this soil and the climate is not particularly mild... Due to this conditions, the people of the Cevennes have to stick together.

In the 1980's, we decided, Denis, Jean-Pierre, Daniel, myself and some others to create a cooperative for the use of agricultural equipment (CUMA). This marks the beginning of a common adventure. This cooperative developed very soon and we then decided to create an agricultural workshop where we would produce apple juice. Soon after this we studied the possibility of creating a workshop where we would transform and prepare sweet chestnuts, the gold of the Cévennes, but, the level of investment needed dissuaded us from doing it. Anyhow, the idea was not forgotten since our project has inspired a group of farmers in the region of Gard who are establishing their workshop in Génolhac...

Unfortunately, at the end of the 1980's, confronted with financial difficulties, our workshop was forced to close.

Chapter III - The 1990's.

The 1990's starts badly. No purchaser for the workshop is found. The local producers of sweet chestnuts did not have any place to transform and prepare their harvest anymore. The possibility of dismantling the entire installation and sell it piece by piece was even discussed !

We then thought about creating a cooperative to recover the workshop, but the project failed. Finally, in 1991 we decided to create a company and tempt the adventure.

Now we had to find a name for this new company (SARL). This was subject for countless discussions. At this time the workshop had only one oven and no sorting-table. The sweet chestnuts were sorted manually. This is a collective operation, which also mobilizes our wife's. The discussions were long and passionate... and the outcome unexpected. At one point one of us mentioned the ruins of the old castle of Verfeuille situated near Saint Andéol of Clerguemort, and that was all it took for all of us to agree. The new company would take the name of the castle from a time long gone. And this beautiful story still continues. The workshop is in full activity. We work with more than 100 local producers of sweet chestnuts, jam, honey and other specialties. We recently installed a new oven and a new sorting-table Now, parts of the sweet chestnuts are sorted automatically, by optic recognition and a sorting-system using compressed air to eliminate the rotten sweet chestnuts... and we still have a lot of projects for the years 2000 !