Archive for June, 2009
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Visits are good for business
Monday, June 29th, 2009
When Henri Babeur addressed the cooperative’s 25th anniversary celebrations in 1957, he stressed the fundamental importance of maintaining direct contact with customers. “We will continue encouraging and intensifying direct personal contact between farmers, factory workers and customers, by organising collective visits, as we have done in the past,” he explained. “This will enable all of [...]
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Milk powder earns it keep
Friday, June 26th, 2009
Powder milk was more than just an afterthought: during the 1960s, the drying towers would handle 260 tonnes of milk a day at peak periods, buying in additional milk from neighbouring dairies to make a range of milk powders for livestock. “The production of powdered milk was an essential diversification,” explained Réné Vemclefs, the cooperative’s [...]
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Postwar powdered milk: the height of modernity
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Isigny’s first drying tower for powdered milk started work in 1949 and was such a resounding success that by 1959 the cooperative had built a second one, three times the size. Capable of processing two and a half tonnes of milk an hour, the second tower was housed in an ultramodern glass-walled building. It was [...]
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France's first spray drying tower
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
By 1946, Henri Babeur had decided that the cooperative should build a milk drying tower and make soluble milk powder from what had previously been given back to the members. “It will not only increase the value of the skimmed milk above what it is worth as a cheese by-product, but will allow us to [...]
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Postwar reconstruction
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
As the liberating armies moved on to Caen and Paris, the Isigny dairy farmers returned to developing their cooperative. There were just 28 of the founder members who had survived the war: they were joined by a further 208 new members. As the war drew to a close, the Bessin exceeded a previous 1938 high [...]
