Une société biterroise aux racines haut-saônoises : la société familiale Abel Bresson, du négoce à la firme industrielle (1839-1940)

Abstract

In 1997, Abel Bresson, a company from Beziers, owned by the Marie Brizard group since 1990, specialized in the manufacture of syrups and concentrates, closed its doors. Victim of a group strategy and of the concentration of distribution, it disappeared from the Biterrois landscape where it had been established for 60 years. If Abel Bresson represents more than half a century of history in Beziers, it also represents more than a century of history in Fougerolles in Haute-Saône. At its peak, at the end of the 19th century, it was one of the leaders on the national market of aperitifs and digestives. It even became the leader in this market after the acquisition in 1912 of its direct competitor and leader in the absinthe market, the prestigious Édouard Pernod company. While the highly competitive market of alcoholic beverages, marked by the confrontation between fermented beverages represented by wine and distilled beverages such as absinthe and its assimilated products, seemed to condemn it to disappear, it managed to resist and to develop thanks to its territorial anchoring, to its family business culture and to successful strategies of internal and external growth and diversification of products and brands.