Martin de Candre - production site today and yesterday

I've the good fortune to have visited the MdC site recently, which I'd highly recommend. Anyone who's been there will probably agree that it's not what you'd expect a soap factory to look like if your mental image is Dove, P&G, Unilever... production sites. But also, since it's such an old site, I thought I'd dig up some history of the location. As with many enterprises in Europe, there's some interesting history.
I grabbed some text and images from the web, and thought I'd share a little of the back story via this link.
In fact I translated more from their site about even older history - predating the 18th century and talking about their link to the nearby and world-famous Fontevraud Abbey, resting place of King Henry II of England as well as Richard the Lionheart and others (link here).
If anyone's interested I can post that too.
It's somehow rewarding to know that buying their soap not only gives you an incomparable shave, but at the same time supports a modest and long-established family in the "Valley of the Kings". Those delightful notes they often include in their packages are probably hand-written by a Dauge family member.

Nice one indeed
Is it easy to program a factory visit ?

Mango said:

Nice one indeed
Is it easy to program a factory visit ?

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Actually they don't offer tours of the factory - perhaps because it's really very small and I'm sure there is some (understandable) protection of their process that comes into play. But in the shop, which is at the front of the production area under the same roof, they offer have a very comprehensive video presentation of the production process. I found that to be good enough.

Mind you, being an engineer I always like to see machines etc.

Thanks for sharing. Very interesting.

Thanks for sharing.

Tks

A fine presentation-thanks for sharing!

I'd love to pay them a visit someday. Do they speak English?

And are they aware of how their shaving soap is revered by wet-shavers? I've never been lucky enough to try it, but its near the top of my wish-list.

I've thought that if an American vendor would import it by the boatload, everyone involved could make a lot of money. But scaling up their enterprise to produce that much volume might destroy the very essence of what makes it so rare, and so desirable.

dpm802 said:

I'd love to pay them a visit someday. Do they speak English?
And are they aware of how their shaving soap is revered by wet-shavers? I've never been lucky enough to try it, but its near the top of my wish-list.
I've thought that if an American vendor would import it by the boatload, everyone involved could make a lot of money. But scaling up their enterprise to produce that much volume might destroy the very essence of what makes it so rare, and so desirable.

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I speak French myself and there were few people there when I visited, all French. So I don't actually know. However American orders are VERY important to them and so I think they would have enough from processing our orders, which they do daily, to make a visit memorable.
To be honest, I don't think they have any idea of the reverence that many of us in the US/Canada have for this product.

Agree on the last point - it's a delicate enough matter, isn't it? You'd love to see it everywhere, but what would be the price to pay?

Cool link...based on the size of the site, I can see why S&H costs so much...how much does it cost to pay the farmhand to run to the post everyday?

I I sent them three emails requesting information if their prices on their web site contained VAT. If so, what was the percentage I could deduct. And, what would they charge to ship items to California. These emails were written in english and I translated them into french. Surprisingly, I have never received a response. If the have a "Contact Us" on the web site they should have responded. I used the following address: [email protected]. Has anybody contacted them and and received a reply? Their email address was found on their web site. There is however a bricks and mortar store here in Los Angeles County that carry some of their products but I would like to place a large order with them. Very displeasing.

Their product is awesome.

Can't speak to the VAT.

OnlookeR7557 said:

I I sent them three emails requesting information if their prices on their web site contained VAT. If so, what was the percentage I could deduct. And, what would they charge to ship items to California. These emails were written in english and I translated them into french. Surprisingly, I have never received a response. If the have a "Contact Us" on the web site they should have responded. I used the following address: [email protected]. Has anybody contacted them and and received a reply? Their email address was found on their web site. There is however a bricks and mortar store here in Los Angeles County that carry some of their products but I would like to place a large order with them. Very displeasing.

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VAT in France is 20%, although there are other rates for items such as food.

OnlookeR7557 said:

I I sent them three emails requesting information if their prices on their web site contained VAT. If so, what was the percentage I could deduct. And, what would they charge to ship items to California. These emails were written in english and I translated them into french. Surprisingly, I have never received a response. If the have a "Contact Us" on the web site they should have responded. I used the following address: [email protected]. Has anybody contacted them and and received a reply? Their email address was found on their web site. There is however a bricks and mortar store here in Los Angeles County that carry some of their products but I would like to place a large order with them. Very displeasing.

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I can give you the information you need. The prices do indeed include VAT and the shipping price shown is for shipping to France.
You will pay less for the product since the VAT will come off the total price. But you will pay more than the price shown for the shipping.
How much in each case?
Go ahead with the process to place the order. As you proceed, and certainly before being asked to pay, you will see the ACTUAL price for each. Unfortunately the extra cost to ship is greater than the saving of VAT.
Good luck!

Limekiln said:

I can give you the information you need. The prices do indeed include VAT and the shipping price shown is for shipping to France.
You will pay less for the product since the VAT will come off the total price. But you will pay more than the price shown for the shipping.
How much in each case?
Go ahead with the process to place the order. As you proceed, and certainly before being asked to pay, you will see the ACTUAL price for each. Unfortunately the extra cost to ship is greater than the saving of VAT.
Good luck!

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Right.

When I was planning a visit to France I asked her outside of Paris where could I find their product. A lady whose name I don't recall promptly responded and gave me the name of a store in Nice. We had a few e-mails back and forth and I told her how much we enjoyed her product. She told me she had a number of customers in the U.S.

For those of you who are curious about MdC and feeling slightly guilty that you've not yet made a contribution to B&B, this is YOUR week. Any new contributor entering the PIF I'm running here, will also get a sample of MdC from me regardless of whether or not they win the PIF. It's guaranteed! Plus, you might actually win the PIF. DOUBLE PLUS, you might win the contest the mods are running for new contributors here.

So c'mon. Make a small donation and get some MdC.


oake

This forum is supported by a generous grant from the Who's Watching Ouch Now Foundation and shavers like you.

dpm802 said:

I'd love to pay them a visit someday. Do they speak English?

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I just went to look at their website at www.martin-de-candre.com ... the home page displays two options, to ENTER (in English) or ENTREE (in French.)

The English part of their site is down for maintenance, and there is nothing to see there. However, if you use the ENTREE button, then use Google Translate to convert French to English, you can see all they have to offer.

Google Translate doesn't do a perfect job on this website. Some of the sentences it presents have awkward grammar and unusual structures. But it is good enough that you can get the general gist of the content, and placing an order in English should not be too difficult.

dpm802 said:

I just went to look at their website at www.martin-de-candre.com ... the home page displays two options, to ENTER (in English) or ENTREE (in French.)

The English part of their site is down for maintenance, and there is nothing to see there. However, if you use the ENTREE button, then use Google Translate to convert French to English, you can see all they have to offer.

Google Translate doesn't do a perfect job on this website. Some of the sentences it presents have awkward grammar and unusual structures. But it is good enough that you can get the general gist of the content, and placing an order in English should not be too difficult.

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Great advice here.
I've also been on the site for the property here and you get even more bizarre behaviour. Click on the Union Jack for english, and the site is exactly the same as the French one!
So marketing is not their forte, let's just leave it there ;-)
"Google Translate doesn't do a perfect job on this website. Some of the sentences it presents have awkward grammar and unusual structures."
To be honest, some of their text even in French is already this way! There are spelling mistakes here and there as well.
Anyhow, like you say, there's enough there to be able to make sense of it.

Limekiln said:

Great advice here.
I've also been on the site for the property here and you get even more bizarre behaviour. Click on the Union Jack for english, and the site is exactly the same as the French one!
So marketing is not their forte, let's just leave it there ;-)
"Google Translate doesn't do a perfect job on this website. Some of the sentences it presents have awkward grammar and unusual structures."
To be honest, some of their text even in French is already this way! There are spelling mistakes here and there as well.
Anyhow, like you say, there's enough there to be able to make sense of it.

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I remember a website from way back that would take any given text in English, translate it from English to French, French to German, German to Italian, Italian to Spanish, Spanish to Swedish, Swedish to Russian, and then Russian back to English. You could put in any combination of languages in any order, as long as the first and last were the same.

The resulting hodge-podge of words that came out the other end bore little resemblance to what went into the grinder in the first place. My friend who is a whiz at languages had lots of fun with this, and he would often have the translation to the next step done before the program did! Anyway, it was a fun little site that goes to show that often what we think we're saying isn't really what we mean, no matter which language we're speaking in.

OnlookeR7557 said:

I I sent them three emails requesting information if their prices on their web site contained VAT. If so, what was the percentage I could deduct. And, what would they charge to ship items to California. These emails were written in english and I translated them into french. Surprisingly, I have never received a response. If the have a "Contact Us" on the web site they should have responded. I used the following address: [email protected]. Has anybody contacted them and and received a reply? Their email address was found on their web site. There is however a bricks and mortar store here in Los Angeles County that carry some of their products but I would like to place a large order with them. Very displeasing.

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I didn't see any power lines...maybe they check email when they run into town!