The little lie that gave rise to Président cheese and the world's leading dairy group

Along one of the winding roads that connect the solitary farms of the Mayenne region of France, the engine of a van roars. It's driven by André Besnier, a young cooper from Montsûrs, one of the small villages that completes the endless mosaic of fields in the area. It's October 19, 1933, and he's carrying a pile of empty barrels. He also carries an ambition: to get the local farmers to sell him milk. He has a good nose for business; he's sensed the possibility of making easy money in the dairy industry and has jumped in headfirst: the barrel workshop is doing well, but he believes he could do better by making cheese. "At that time, the farmers made their own butter and didn't want to sell their milk to anyone," recalls one of Besnier's assistants, who was with him in the van. "To make them believe that other ranchers had already sold to him, he filled a few boots with water," the witness continues in an extensive report published in 1990 in The ObséconomyThe trick worked: at night he would happily unload 30 liters of milk from his workshop in the medieval village of Lavan.

That day, the seed of Lactalis, the world's largest dairy group, was born. Today, it owns milk brands such as Puleva, Castillo, and Ram, all very popular in Spain; cheeses such as El Ventero, Galbani, and Gran Capitán; yogurts and desserts, such as La Lechera, Nesquik, and Nestlé, the result of an alliance with this other company; and Chufi horchata, among others. In Spain alone, the Lactalis subsidiary closed in 2024 with a turnover of €1.676 billion. Worldwide, the company surpassed the €30 billion mark for the first time. It is present in 50 countries, has 266 dairies and cheese factories spread across five continents, and has a workforce of 85,500 employees. But what happened that caused a young cooper from the 1930s, who didn't even own cows, to end up creating an empire of this magnitude?

The push of competition

With the first 30 liters of milk, André Besnier locked himself in the shack and began making Camembert cheeses by hand. He called them Petit Lavallois. "I gave the most disastrous ones to the nuns of La Misericordia; the rest came from the Laval market," people who knew him recall. The ObséconomyLittle by little, he gained the farmers' trust with clever techniques: taking advantage of milk shipments, for example, he offered to deliver packages and letters for free. He soon needed more hands in the workshop and sought them out from the religious cooperatives in the region. He offered higher wages and recruited good workers. Using this method, he recruited a chemical engineer who helped him set up the first factory with a real face and eyes.

In 1956, with the business already recovered from the ravages of World War II, André Besnier died and the company passed into the hands of Michel, his favorite son. It was under his reign that the cheeses became popular. In the 1960s, cheesemaker Jean-Moël Bongrain created the Caprice des Dieux brand, with a large production capacity, a very consistent taste, and a good presentation. Besnier learned his lesson and in 1968 created the Président brand of soft Camemberts. It worked very well.

From 1970 onwards, with Michel Besnier now well-versed in the company, the company grew by the book, buying a number of cheese factories in western France. With a true focus on cost control and industrial efficiency, Besnier made his masterful move in 1990. That year, he acquired Bridel, one of the historic giants of the sector. This transformed the company into the leading dairy group in France.

Sales abroad had also been growing. In fact, in 1981, the company purchased its first cheese factory outside of France: in Wisconsin, United States. In 1999, with a clear commitment to expanding its borders, they renamed the company Lactalis. A year later, Emmanuel Besnier, Michel's son, succeeded him and completed the expansion. Beginning in 2000, and under fire for operating with high financial opacity and a hyper-competitive business model, the company acquired the Italian brands Galbani, Nuova Castelli, and Parmalat, Siggi's Icelandic yogurts, and Kraft Heinz dairy products in the United States, except for the famous Philadelphia brand.