Societe des Ocres de France

Societe des Ocres de France traces to 1780, when Jean-Etienne Astier industrialized ochre separation near Roussillon in Provence's Luberon massif. Competing Burgundy-region producers merged in 1892 as the Comptoir des Ocres de Bourgogne, and the modern company was formally established in 1901. Production peaked around 1929, when some eighteen companies employed roughly 1,000 workers and extracted 40,000 tonnes of ochre a year from open-air workings at Gargas, Roussillon, Rustrel and neighboring communes.

The industry collapsed as synthetic and petroleum-based pigments displaced natural ochre: factory closures accelerated from the 1950s, and the company filed for cessation of activity on 31 October 1973 with production near zero. Gilbert Guigou, a mason from Apt who knew the trade, bought the bankrupt firm in 1974 and rebuilt it from the ground up. His sons Jean-Paul and Andre joined in 1985, grandchildren Brice, Stephanie and Pascal followed between 1996 and 2014, and great-granddaughter Ludivine joined in August 2019 -- four generations of the same family running the last company still mining and transforming raw ochre ore into pure pigment.

Today the firm operates from newly built factory premises occupied in January 2015, having opened a retail outlet around 2005. It holds France's Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant (Living Heritage Company) label, awarded in 2017, and produces roughly a hundred natural and synthetic pigments alongside lime-based whitewashes and colored plasters -- supplying both the fine-arts trade and traditional building restoration from the same Luberon quarry that has supplied ochre since the 18th century.