Restaurant
Rue de la biscuiterie in Pfastatt. The air smells of Linz pie. It is here that, since 1946, the Albisser family has been preparing delicious biscuits. It is Céline, the founder's granddaughter, who welcomes visitors who have come to discover this fine family business.
Latest edition : 26 April 2020
Joseph Albisser finds himself an orphan at the age of 7. Collected by the mayor of the town, this allows him to begin, at the age of 14, an apprenticeship with a baker in Mulhouse. During the war years, works in an industrial bakery which makes bread and crackers for the army.
When he returns to Alsace, he would like to set up a biscuit factory with his boss. But it was the time of rationing and the amount of flour was just enough to make bread. This is where the baker's wife has an idea. Playing the war widow, she shows up with an empty coffin at the demarcation line with Germany to repatriate the body of her late husband. Instead of the corpse, she brings back flour from the black market! Joseph can finally make his rusks.
And the success is there. The rusks keep much better than bread, they are quickly sold. As flour was still rationed in Mulhouse, every week the baker's wife came with her coffin to bring back another deceased member of her family. The gendarmes were not fooled but they closed one eye, rather two!
If you want something, you have to work
With the success of his rusks and gingerbread, production premises were needed and therefore money. Never mind ! In addition to the bakery, Joseph had two other day jobs. His motto: "If you want to achieve something, you have to work".
It was in a small room on a farm that he began to make his own rusks. Every 10 days, Joseph makes his rounds of sales to Saint-Louis and Colmar. On foot, before being able to invest in a small scooter..
The business works and with his wife Hélène, he can buy a house to renovate to install the 1st “real” biscuit factory there. Joseph buys an industrial oven, a small industrial chain. As packaging is still done by hand, many villagers find work at Albisser, the first industrial biscuit factory in Alsace.
But Joseph saw further and he created the “Champagne biscuit”: at the time, it was under the hills of Pfastatt that champagne wines were returned. The Champagne winegrowers transported the must to Alsace for bottling so that they could save transport tax and sell cheaper to the Germans.
When the name "biscuit de Champagne" is prohibited, Joseph Albisser makes "boudoirs" (which do not melt in the mouth).
“My grandfather was not a spendthrift, he always invested in new machines. And the whole family trained for 2 years at the biscuit school in Paris to become a qualified biscuit maker,” says Céline proudly, who still knows many anecdotes about the working conditions of her grandfather's time.
But it's time to push the doors of the workshop to learn more about how these little cookies are made.
Joseph Albisser bet on diversification in order to compensate for possible market losses: small butters, ladyfingers, spoon biscuits, macaroons, shortbread, petit fours, meringues, madeleines and other elsass cookies.
Three types of sugar are used: granulated sugar, caster sugar (for meringues) and icing sugar (for sprinkling biscuits).
Butter ensures the crunchiness of the biscuits. Hazelnuts come from Piedmont, walnuts from Périgord, almonds from California.
Every week, Albisser processes approximately 1.5 tonnes of flour, 1 tonne of sugar, 200 to 500 liters of eggs and between 200 to 500 kg of butter from Brittany. The production is around 300,000 cupcakes per year:
“In the composition of the biscuits, only natural flavorings such as beetroot juice, for example, bring color. Coconut oil enhances the aroma of coconut macaroons”. The raspberry jam for the Linz-style mini tartlets comes from Beyer, another fine family business in the region.
With 60 to 80 kg of biscuits made per person per day, the production remains artisanal. All fragile cookies continue to be wrapped by hand.
In the workshop, three lines are installed: the oven for small butter, the oven for biscuits, ladyfingers, madeleines and the meringue oven in which the meringues dry for 2 hours at 80 to 100°C. The latter must be constantly regulated according to the hygrometry, the meringue being very sensitive to humidity.
“These are gas tunnel ovens for bandwidths or plates for the most fragile biscuits. We still use the old machines. Everyone can learn to use it, but not everyone is an engineer to know how to handle the new machines! I bought a €30,000 machine but I'm the only one who knows how to set it up and run it…. Not to mention that old machines are just mechanics and can be repaired! »
In the farmhouses in the Vosges, frozen meringue is one of the traditional desserts. "It's a bit thanks to my grandfather," smiles Céline, who tells the story of her family with great passion and love. Joseph went around the inns in the mountains to persuade them to buy his meringues: if there are no more pies but still customers, the meringue allows you to make a replacement dessert: 2 meringues, a scoop of ice cream, whipped cream…. The meringue will keep for a year, so you can always have some on hand! »
And the rusks, which were at the origin of the Albisser biscuit factory? "We still make them, especially for countries like India and Bangladesh, since the rusks keep very well."
Albisser still has 13 employees today and is entirely managed by the family: the father is CEO, the mother takes care of the commercial side and Céline assumes the function of director.
In the small factory shop, you can find a beautiful range of small cakes that come in around thirty varieties, including almond tiles and even mini-tartlets from Linz.
Biscuiterie Albisser, 1 rue de la biscuiterie, 68120 Pfastatt
Open every day except Saturday and Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. (Friday mornings only)
Tel. 03 89 52 25 22