You had to dare! In the midst of Covid, three young Parisians launched in Nangeville, in the heart of Beauce, an organic beer factory on a short circuit. Located in the heart of a cereal farm, on the edge of the fields, the small company, which has just been officially inaugurated, has already grown a lot. With around ten employees, it produced 2.5 million bottles last year, under the “La Brasserie Fondamentale” (LBF) brand, and plans to produce twice as many this year.
800 bars offer their beers
The collective adventure started in Paris. Marc Charpentier, Youssef Chraibi and Martin Pellet, who met on the benches of ESSEC, decided in 2016 to organize brewing workshops. They continue by creating their own brand, open several bars, in Paris and Bordeaux, and finally decide to launch into production.
Supported by the regional development agency Dev’up and local authorities, they will start in 2020 in Nangeville, about twenty km from their malted barley supplier. To its six standard products, the brewery, which is developing rapidly, adds ephemeral beers, concocted according to the seasons and the mood of the brewers. It is one of them that won a gold medal in the general agricultural competition a few weeks ago. Two others were awarded, in silver and bronze, “a podium all to ourselves”, laughs Martin Pellet.
Their beers are distributed in 800 bars and restaurants throughout France, in TGVs, on board Transavia planes, at Carrefour, soon at Monoprix… With “very full” order books, the factory is now overheated, so much so that the three co-founders plan to take “a new step”.
They will invest three million euros more in the next twelve months to speed up the pace. And they do not rule out soon making an even more local beer, by buying barley directly from farmers who cultivate the fields near the brewery.