Olivier Baussan bets on pistachios and Provence after L'Occitane

Olivier Baussan, the founder of L'Occitane en Provence, is not a man to sit still. At 74, he has swapped cosmetics for confectionery, building a new group called Territoire de Provence that brings together almond growers, olive oil mills, a historic calisson maker and a fledgling pistachio industry on the Valensole plateau.

The cosmetics company he started in a 7,000-square-metre workshop in Volx now occupies 25,000 square metres down the road in Manosque and marks its 50th anniversary this year. Baussan sold the business but stayed close, acting as a mentor and consultant. His new venture, which turns over €34 million, includes Le Roy René, the celebrated maker of Aix calissons, and Brémond Fils, a chain of gourmet food shops rooted in the Aix region.

A literature graduate turned distiller

Baussan's path was never conventional. The son of a journalist at Le Méridional, he earned a literature degree in Aix before a chance encounter with an alembic set him distilling rosemary for market stalls. A defining moment came at 23 during a two-day transhumance in the Luberon. When a sheep was injured, a shepherd gathered juniper, improvised an oven and produced cade oil to treat the wound. The scene, practical, natural, rooted in place, became a template for everything that followed.

"We are very attached to the term 'manufacture,' which is synonymous with the art of craftsmanship," Baussan says. "We are here to make great products, promote them, and, through them, give new momentum to Provence. The ingredients here are well-known, but are they valued enough?"

The pistachio gamble

The boldest move is pistachios. The trees demand little water, a critical advantage as the Mediterranean climate shifts. Maison de la Pistache has taken root on the Valensole plateau, where lavender currently draws summer crowds. Le Roy René alone imports 200 metric tonnes of almonds annually for its calissons and nougats; Baussan wants a homegrown alternative. That means convincing farmers to plant, building processing infrastructure and waiting half a decade for the first commercial harvest.

"Continuity is necessarily a concern. We must not be afraid to put everything that will define the future on the table. I am 74 years old; I am not going to say I am retired, because I have never really retired, but I know the need to plan for the future,"

Succession is already in motion. Marie-Claire Maurin, Baussan's long-time assistant at L'Occitane, has a son, Ugo Martinez, who now serves as chief executive of Territoire de Provence. The Baussan family will remain shareholders. His wife Nadette, an illustrator, continues to design the packaging that first catches a customer's eye.

Roots and reach

Baussan cites Jean Giono, Victor Hugo and René Char as literary companions, writers who understood landscapes where beauty and aridity coexist. That duality, poetic attachment to place, hard-headed commercial instinct, has let him launch brands, absorb failures and start again. Regionalism, in his hands, is not nostalgia. It is a supply chain strategy.