A Reims biscuit house from the reign of Louis XV.

Reims had its pink biscuit before it had Fossier. The company says the biscuit rose de Reims dates from around 1690, when Champagne bakers made a dough that was baked once and then left to dry in the cooling bread oven — hence “bis-cuit,” cooked twice; French Wikipedia gives the same origin. The biscuit was white at first. It was coloured pink with carmine, the company says, to hide the dark specks left by vanilla pods.

The house itself was founded in Reims in 1756, in the reign of Louis XV, under the name Noël-Houzeau, French Wikipedia says. Its biscuits, marzipan and gingerbread were present at the coronation of Louis XVI in Reims Cathedral in 1775, and the house became a supplier to the king; in 1825, under Charles X, it received a royal warrant for its biscuits, according to French Wikipedia, citing a note by the regional education documentation centre and L’Express. In 1845 a Reims baker, Monsieur Fossier, took over the business, which has carried his name since.

The company says the house kept trading through both world wars by adapting what it made, and that of the fifteen biscuit makers still listed in Reims in the mid-20th century it is the only one left. French Wikipedia calls it the oldest biscuit maker still operating in France.

Rescue and revival.

The late 20th century was hard. French Wikipedia says the house, then with about twenty staff, went through three insolvency filings and faced liquidation. In 1996 Charles de Fougeroux, who had taken over another Reims firm, the Biscuiterie Rémoise, two years earlier, bought Fossier and merged the two. The business moved out of the city centre into new buildings, which La Croix reported in 2009 had cost a year’s turnover, and set about reviving old recipes such as gingerbread.

The pink biscuit stayed at the centre. The company says the double baking gives it a high capacity to absorb liquid, which makes it a common ingredient in charlottes, tiramisu and cheesecake; French Wikipedia gives its traditional weight as 100 grams a dozen.

It grew. In 2006 it received the state’s Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant label for living-heritage firms, renewed in 2016. By 2009 it employed 75 people and had revenue of about €10 million, 45 per cent of it from the pink biscuit, La Croix reported. In 2010 Charles-Antoine de Fougeroux succeeded his father, L’Union reported. Le Figaro wrote in May 2013 that exports made up 10 per cent of sales, and that the company was looking to the Middle East and Asia; it had launched savoury pastries and a powdered pink biscuit for baking, and planned to sell more online and open shops, including in Paris.

The range goes well beyond the biscuit rose. The company lists macarons, croquignoles, madeleines and gingerbread, along with the Charles VII, a chocolate double sablé that it says is marked with Reims Cathedral, and a sablé champenois shaped like a champagne cork. It also runs guided visits of the biscuiterie, seen from a glazed gallery, with a factory shop at the end.

Seven biscuit brands, one country.

The seven brands in this group all sell biscuits, and they all come from one country, France: Bonne Maman, Gavottes, La Mère Poulard, Fossier, Traou Mad, La Trinitaine and Michel et Augustin. French biscuits in general sit at many different points in the trade, from the packet on a supermarket shelf to the tin sold in a regional shop or a town’s own bakery, and a single company can work at both ends at once.

A biscuit brand’s identity is usually carried by a recipe, a packet and a place, because the name on the front often points to a town, a region or a person even when the biscuit inside is made somewhere else, by someone else. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its biscuits are actually baked and packed.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its biscuits are made and how its packaging came about — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A Reims house in a Breton group.

The family era ended in 2021. The Rennes-based Galapagos group, through Galapagos Gourmet — already the owner of Gavottes and Traou Mad — had taken a stake in Fossier at the end of 2019 and then bought the whole company, 20 Minutes reported on 7 April 2021, quoting the group as saying the purchase fitted its mission of preserving regional know-how; French Wikipedia and L’Union date the sale to March 2021. Galapagos Gourmet had been formed in July 2019 to group the Traou Mad, Gavottes and Moulin du Pivert biscuit businesses, with investment arms of Crédit Agricole and Crédit Mutuel Arkéa each taking 15 per cent, French Wikipedia says, citing Les Echos. Galapagos was founded by Christian Tacquard and is owned by his family, French Wikipedia says; in 2024 it also bought the Paris delicatessen Fauchon, Ouest-France reported.

The pandemic year had hit the business. Its revenue fell to €8 million in 2020 from €12 million in 2019, 20 Minutes reported, with the pink biscuit making up about half of sales, and it then had six shops in the Marne and the Aube.

Fossier says its recipes and methods are carried on in its factory in Reims, that it uses French wheat, flour, eggs and sugar, and that its team numbers nearly 100 people. The biscuit is still tied to a drinking custom: the company says it became usual to dip it in still red wine from the Champagne hills and later in a glass of champagne, and that its long drying after baking stops it falling apart.

For a design guide, Fossier shows how one regional speciality can define a house and give it its colour. Compare Delacre, a Brussels biscuit house that supplied the Belgian court, and LU, the Nantes biscuit maker. For this guide we use biscuit pink, carmine and champagne gold with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Fossier’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.