Dates

• Existence: 1887:-

Biography

The French company LU (called Lefèvre-Utile for the first 40 years of its existence) is a manufacturer brand of biscuits. It was started in 1846 by Jean-Romain Lefèvre, who was joined by his spouse and partner Isabelle Utile in 1850. Together they had a luxury pastry shop in Nantes, selling Biscuit rose de Reims. In 1882, their son Louis Lefèvre-Utile bought his parents' company and decided to industrialise and scale up production. In 1886 he created the Petit Beurre, still to this day one of the flagship products of the brand, before founding the LU company in 1887 with his brother Ernest.

During the interwar years, the company lost some of its business to its rival company BN, which offered more affordable products at a time where luxury items weren't accessible to many people. Michel Lefèvre-Utile, son of Louis, set up a network of exclusive representatives. His own son Patrick, who took over the business in 1945, adapted the company to changing times and started mass producing different biscuits in the 1950s. He collaborated with the French-born American designer Raymond Loewy to create the red "LU" logo, still used today.

LU has since been following an alliance strategy to expand internationally. It has been bought by bigger business groups several times, and is currently owned by the multinational Mondelez International.

Found in 1 Collection or Record:

Card album entitled "Album des célébrités contemporaines publié par Lefèvre-Utile, Nantes"

 Item — Box CLX-A-1721

Identifier: Coll-2042

Content Description This is an artfully decorated album issued by the French biscuit manufacturer LU (formerly known as Lefèvre-Utile), entitled "Album des célébrités contemporaines publié par Lefèvre-Utile, Nantes". It contains forty-eight chromolithographed cards featuring famous figures from the arts; each card, embossed with silver or gold, bore a black-and-white photograph portrait of the celebrity along with a relevant colour image and a quotation from the celebrity themselves in praise of LU biscuits....

Dates: c 1901

Found in: University of Edinburgh Library Heritage Collections