Archive for the ‘Visit’ category
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What better topping for ice cream?
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
During the 1950s, the Isigny factory shop – sometimes referred to as the ‘sales shed’ – the summers saw a roaring trade in dairy ice creams for visiting tourists. Nobody quite remembers where the idea came from to top ice creams with Chantilly cream (very light and fluffy vanilla flavoured whipped cream). But it was [...]
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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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General de Gaulle visits Isigny
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
Having spent the war years in London at the head of the exiled Free French forces, General Charles de Gaulle was able to reach France on June 14 1944, when he visited Bayeux, Grandcamp and Isigny-sur-Mer. He was greeted by crowds in Bayeux, which had been liberated by British troops without a struggle a week [...]
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Standing at the crossroads of history
Saturday, May 30th, 2009
As the Allied landing forces approached the Normandy coast in June 1944, Isigny sur Mer found itself sandwiched between two battle zones. To the north north-east, Omaha beach saw some of the heaviest fighting in the whole sector, while on the other side of the estuary from Isigny was Utah beach, where some 23,000 US [...]
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Isigny visits Paris for Concours général agricole
Monday, May 25th, 2009
As well as receiving trade visitors from Paris, in 1934 the Isigny dairy cooperative started to enter its products for the Concours général agricole (CGA), France’s annual national food and farming contest. This competition was set up by the French state in 1870 and is reserved for agricultural products, either in their original state or [...]
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Visits become part of butter calendar
Monday, May 25th, 2009
The first group of visiting crémiers must have talked about little else than Isigny on their return from Normandy. The visit to Isigny sur Mer for a study tour became an annual fixture for the Parisians, for whom the invitation to Isigny was a source of both inspiration and enlightenment. Visiting a farm in the [...]
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Visits build knowledge and confidence
Monday, May 25th, 2009
Henri Babeur was quick to build the confidence of customers by inviting them to visit Isigny sur Mer. Whatever the Paris crémier was to tell Parisian customers needed to be based on the cremier’s own observations to be credible. Working with Georges Picou, the Parisian wholesale trader, Babeur organised a special train and cars to [...]
