Meet the Olivier family from Burgundy, France, who take an alternative approach to food and farming.


Photography by John Reyment, A Day in the Life Images

The hamlet of Concoeur et-Corboin, nestled amongst the blackcurrant bushes and grape vines of Burgundy, France, is home to fourth generation farmers Sylvain and Isabelle Olivier. Sylvain’s ancestors housed cattle in a stone barn in the hamlet years ago and today the same barn has been reborn as a certified organic kitchen. On the Olivier's farm, Fruirouge, tiny red fruits are dotingly transformed by the Olivier family into syrups, jams, sauces, alcohols, creams, vinegars and ratafias (fruits macerated in alcohol with sugar or honey), and visitors are welcomed.

At the end of a long, honey-toned table, Sylvain turns the handle of a cherry-pipper. Other days see strawberries, redcurrants, raspberries and blackcurrants spill their juice on the same table as they are pipped, sliced and sorted. The air is sweet with strawberry jam on the boil and next in the pot will be Sylvain’s just-pipped Montmorency cherries that are common in the Burgundy region.

The cassis (blackcurrant) harvest has just ended on Fruirouge’s small, thirteen hectare farm. “It’s been an exceptional harvest with a yield of 35 tons,” says Sylvain. “The bees did a wonderful job. We have stopped using chemical sprays on the cassis and no one believed we could have a successful crop as the fruit is so susceptible to fungus. Last year was the first year of no spray and it’s been our best yet.”

Their newest product, derived from ripe cassis berries, is Ketchup au Cassis, aromatically wild with cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. A jar of the ketchup found its way, via a chef snooping around Burgundy, to Alain Ducasse who now serves the ketchup with Kobe beef at his St. Tropez restaurant Spoon at Byblos. “When I thought to make ketchup it wasn’t to make money, it was to be creative,” says Isabelle. Burgundy locals enjoy Fruirouge’s Ketchup au Cassis with traditional jambon persillé (jellied ham) or as an accompaniment to sheep’s milk cheese.

The Oliviers' decision to operate Fruirouge isn't motivated by money: “When we grow the fruit and I touch it, I think of how I can transform it, I don’t think of the dollars it will bring," says Isabella. “We want to keep things small; we don’t ever want to be an industry and spend our time managing people and markets. We like to grow, transform and sell – Voila!”

They also like to share. When a new staff member joins the Fruirouge family they must understand the Oliviers' philosophy of le partage – to divide and share.

Sylvain wags a finger back and forth and says, “We never go to the supermarket for food because in the supermarket you can’t share. We swap our products, made from tiny red berries, with food-loving farmer friends just like us. We eat well, on wild flower and forest honey, foie gras, rabbit, duck, pig, milk, bread, eggs, jambon persillé, salt, fish, beer, wine, prunes, syrups, jams, pain d’épices (spiced bread), gâteaux, soups, escargot in many guises, and even cakes made with egg of ostrich.”

Sylvain, Isabelle, and other like-minded farmers meet at the Pari Fermier markets to sell their artisanal products to food-savvy Parisians. At the end of the day, after the public are gone and the doors are closed , they swap food, enjoy fellowship, and eat and drink together. They share their love of the earth and the fruits of their labour. There are no written contracts in the world of le partage; rather, it is the shake of a hand and a friend’s word that are the forces that bind. The Oliviers share with more than fifty le partage converts scattered all over France.

Close by Concoeur hamlet is the town of Nuits-Saint-Georges, the heartland of Burgundy, where Sylvain and Isabelle have opened the mini market Fruirouge & Cie. “It’s a small version of Pari Fermier and is used to promote our philosophy of sharing and the products made by our farmer friends,” Isabella says. Shelves are filled with jams, sauces, ratafias and vinegars from the Oliviers' kitchen, and a long list of products like confits, cassoulets, and civets (wild game stews thickened with the animal’s blood) - the delicacies Sylvain and Isabelle swap to enjoy at home.