introducing "le comptoir des poivres"

For a few grains of pepper, there was one a time when men were prepared to sacrifice their lives. Famous adventurers traced the major axes connecting Occidental and Oriental worlds, in search of these precious spices. Their treacherous long voyages followed what came to be known as "The Spice Route". The great sailors Vasco de Gamma, Magellan, Christopher Columbus competed for dominion of the spice market, discovering along the way, the great sea routes and even at times, a continent.

Today pepper has become banal. It is present on our tables and in our kitchens but we don't give it much consideration. We use it mechanically. I am working to help reinvest pepper with the appreciation it deserves. Our greatest chefs have generously given me their confidence, and are helping me in this task: O. Roellinger, P. Gagnaire, M. Troisgros, M. Meneau, Y. Candeborde, G. Vié, G. Passédat, R. Sammut, M. Bruneau, G. Besson ...etc.

I travel to their regions of production, in search of the best peppers on the planet. My criteria for selection are stringent and I buy only the best. These spices are immediately transported by air to France. I can therefore propose spices of the greatest freshness and of very specific origin. It is to be noted that pepper is a product with a value on the stock market. It can be stocked for weeks, of not months or even years, in very poor conditions, untill the market value is favourable.

Large businesses, making scandalous profits, dictate the market. They buy up the crops of the small producers for derisory sums, while those producers find it impossible to live decently from their labour. A large proportion of exported peppers transit via Singapore or Dubai purely for fiscal reasons. It is therefore impossible, when buying pepper in Europe to ascertain the precise origin of the spice, nor how fresh it is. Legislation demands no proof of either to date.

My almost utopian objective, is to deal in sufficiently large quantities of pepper to enable me to buy entire crops from these small producers, paying a correct price for them, (their real price) and thereby encouraging a more rigorous cultivation of the lianas and a more demanding selection of the peppercorns. I hope to encourage the cultivation of smaller quantities of higher quality pepper and cut out unnecessary intermediaries, with the aim of encouraging and supporting fair trade between all links in this commercial chain.