Oh, patents! Menier's Bouisset ads

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Menier commissioned the artist Firmin Bouisset to advertise for the company's new chocolate bars. Bouisset depicted his daughter Yvonne writing "Chocolat Menier" on the wall with a chocolate bar. Alternatively, Yvonne is depicted writing "Évitez les contrefaçons" (Beware of counterfeits), an important message, on which Menier had built its pharmaceutical reputation.

For pharmaceuticals, this meant guaranteeing the purity and source of the ingredients processed as powders, so that they might be effective products. 

For household chocolate, this meant providing quality chocolate bars produced without substitutes for cacao, which was an expensive imported raw material. It also meant recognizing counterfeit wrappers where Menier's name might have been replaced with misleading versions. For example, court records exist for counterfeit wrappers using the names  "Murier, Meunier, Meinier, Nemier, Merier and Nenien" in place of Menier, on otherwise identical Menier chocolate bar wrappers displaying the company's first two medals awarded, or embossed on the bars.

Meunier counterfeit wrapper

References

Jean-Antoine-Brutus Ménier et la Fondation de la Maison Centrale de la Droguerie
https://www.persee.fr/doc/pharm_0035-2349_1984_num_72_263_2427

Saga Menier
http://pone.lateb.pagesperso-orange.fr/contrefacon%20Menier.htm

Oh, patents! The Menier (Saulnier) chocolate factory watermill

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Jules Saulnier’s remodel of the old Menier watermill factory was spectacular. Saulnier built an iron supporting frame for the factory, where it was no longer feasible to use a wood weight-bearing frame that could withstand all the vibrations of the heavy cacao production machinery, in use on all three floors of the factory. 

Saulnier also designed the iron frame as esthetically visible on the outside of the building. The iron joists were crossed in a geometric diamond pattern, accented with brick-mosaic cladding. The brick cladding displayed a diamond geometric pattern, using light colored bricks in the background, blue bricks at the intersection of the joists, and darker bricks for the mosaic diamonds. 

Three different sorts of ceramic inlays were also added to the brick cladding. The ceramic inlays depict “M” for Menier, the cocoa tree and a geometric pattern. Saulnier explicitly cited oriental architecture as the source of inspiration for the decorative façade work, in his effort to bring beauty to an otherwise gray and bleak industrial landscape.





The architectural success of the renovation, in turn, amplified Menier chocolate sales, giving the company an unanticipated source of publicity.  

Saulnier also transformed the inside of the watermill into a then state-of-the-art facility for cacao and chocolate production, streamlining  (with no pun intended) all aspects of production on the three floors of the building, where all the machinery was located for such processes as roasting, grinding, conching and cooling. 

To expand the watermill Saulnier added a fourth stone pile foundation. To power all the new machinery, he replaced the waterwheels with three modern turbines. 

In 1992, the old Menier (Saulnier-remodeled) watermill chocolate factory was listed as the first industrial monument of historical significance in France.

References 

Moulin de la chocolaterie Menier
https://www.citedelarchitecture.fr/sites/default/files/documents/2017-09/fo_chocolateriemenier_def.pdf

Oh, patents! Menier stacked millstones

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

US835286 - Grinding Machine

The 1906 US patent version of a second Menier mechanical engineering invention, US835286, also titled Grinding Machine, concerns two stacked millstones. One millstone (a) is concave and mounted on a shaft. The other millstone (b) is convex and mounted on a feeding shaft. Both millstones are perfectly fitted to grind one on top of the other. However, the lower concave millstone (a) of this invention oscillates independently of the rotating forces of the upper millstone (b). The upper convex millstone (b) rotates and its pressure (weight) is adjustable depending on the substance ground, and the degree of particle fineness required. The shaft of the upper convex millstone is also hollow, enabling to feed the substance for grinding to the center of both millstones. 

One of the US835286 patent drawings is included, showing a vertical section of the stacked millstones assembly with the oscillating lower millstone (a), and feeding shaft of the upper rotating millstone (b).

Reference

FR338809 (A) ― 1904-08-04  - Broyeur pour substances de toutes natures (Original French patent)

Oh, patents! Menier cone-shaped millstones

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

The Menier mechanical engineering patents each concern different sorts of millstones, and their improved grinding efficiency.

US788113 - Grinding Machine (Menier)

Considering the US version (in English), the first 1905 Menier mechanical engineering patent, US788113, titled Grinding Machine, concerns cone-shaped millstones. One central cone-shaped millstone (a) is flanked by two inverted cone-shaped millstones (b), suited to grind fluid, semi-fluid and pasty materials. All three cone-shaped millstones are mounted on shafts. The outer millstone shafts rotate relative to the central millstone with adjustable spring-driven (c) pressure, depending on the substance and the degree of particle fineness required. The central millstone shaft also rotates on its own axis but at a much slower pace, and it is hollow. The hollow central shaft enables to feed the substances for grinding to the flat base of the central cone (a), where the substances are drawn to spiral up the inverse rotating cones. As the substances spiral up to the flat surface of the inverse cones (b), they travel repeatedly between the central (a) and side (b) cones, where they are ground. 

The single US788113 patent drawing is included above. It depicts a vertical section of the central and inverted cone-shaped millstones assembly, including the central feeding shaft and two side shafts.

Reference

FR332855 (A) ― 1903-11-10 - Broyeur à meules coniques opposées pour le broyage intensif des matières fluides, semi-fluides ou pateuses  (Original French patent)

Oh, patents! Chocolat Menier (1)

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

For anyone who ever doubted the curative properties of chocolate, it took a pharmaceutical company founded in 1816 by Antoine Brutus Menier to open France’s first mechanized mass producing cacao powder factory in 1825. Indeed, the original Menier pharmaceutical company, founded in Paris, used cacao powder for medicinal purposes, together with other pulverized mineral and botanical substances.

Remodeled Noisiel watermill chocolate factory on the River Marne

The Menier factory, established in Noisiel, Seine-et-Marne (16 miles east of Paris), rented the hydropower of an old watermill, to boost the production of its pharmaceutical powders. 

Indeed, the watermill factory in Noisiel, built on the River Marne enabled Menier to transition from hand and living horse powered grinding to waterwheel and dam power. The transition to hydropower, then estimated at approx. 32 horsepower, supplied the power that approximately 32 draft horses could not feasibly provide, on-site in Paris. Thus, increased production capacity in Noisiel enabled Menier to accommodate the expansion of the Menier drug company in Paris, while also launching the production of a non-pharmaceutical chocolate product, the first quality household chocolate bar, in 1836.

 In turn, when the Paris Menier drug company was sold to the Pharmacie Centrale de France in 1867, the Menier company consolidated the cacao production side of the business.  This coincided with the Menier purchase of cacao plantations in Nicaragua and the purchase and expansion of the old Noisiel watermill which had been used as the Menier plant. Jules Saulnier, an architect who later worked with Gustave Eiffel, was commissioned.

The Marne River watermill factory remodel (depicted in the above postcard) was integrated with what was also becoming a model labor town (familistère). Indeed, Menier also built housing, a school, a library, restaurants, a canteen, plus more in Noisiel, for its expanding workforce, called “the chocolates”. Beginning with nine workers and one foreman housed inside the old watermill factory, the Menier workforce culminated in 1914 with 2500 workers, housed in Menier residences, in Noisiel and vicinity. 

In 1914, Menier was producing almost 7 (kilo) tons of chocolate per day. By then, the Menier chocolate company, managed by four generations of Menier sons and/or brothers, was also considered an empire with factories teeming in London (UK), and New York City (USA). Menier owned the complete vertical industrial process for chocolate production, from seed to finished product, including plantations, ships for importing, a railroad company for distribution, a sugar refinery and the Noisiel cocoa manufacturing plant, together with the offices compound and residences.

Menier household chocolate wrapper

During the course of its rise, the Menier chocolate empire collected numerous accolades. The original chrome yellow wrapper for Menier household chocolate displayed copies of the front and back of the first two medals awarded to Menier: a Gold Medal of Encouragement, awarded in 1832, and a silver medal awarded at the 1834 Industrial Fair in Paris, among many more to come. The elected mayor of Noisiel was also a Menier family member up to 1959, when the Menier company factory was sold, and the Menier family left Noisiel.

In 2018, the Noisiel Menier compound which has accommodated Nestlé, France headquarters, and its 1300 employees, since 1995, is apparently on sale, since Nestlé has planned to move closer to Paris. The Saulnier-remodeled old factory watermill (le Moulin Saulnier), remains the first factory listed as a historically significant site in France. Most importantly, to date, the 200-year old Menier quality household chocolate bars, wrapped in paper that still displays the front and back of the first two medals, awarded in the 1830s, continue to hold their own, on the chocolate market in France, and elsewhere.

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The Menier chocolate empire purchased technology to power its chocolate manufacturing processes, and the company patented its own inventions. In particular, Henri Emile Menier, grandson of the Menier company founder in 1816, patented two grinding machines, at the turn of the 20^th century.

Each of the Menier grinding machine inventions is recited in respective patent families that include FR (France), US (United States), GB (Great Britain) and CA (Canada) patents, listed below.

Menier grinding machine patent family (cone-shaped millstones)

• FR332855 (A) ― 1903-11-10 - Broyeur à meules coniques opposées pour le broyage intensif des matières fluides, semi-fluides ou pateuses  
• US788113 (A) ― 1905-04-25 - Grinding-machine
• GB190410166 (A) ― 1904-11-24 - Improvements in and relating to Grinding or Crushing Machines
• CA87752 (A) ― 1904-06-14 - Grinding machine 

Menier grinding machine patent family (stacked concave-convex millstones)

• FR338809 (A) ― 1904-08-04 - Broyeur pour substances de toutes natures
• US835286 (A) ― 1906-11-06 - Grinding-machine 
• GB190410180 (A) ― 1904-11-24 - Improvements in and relating to Grinding or Crushing Machines 
• CA87753 (A) ― 1904-06-14 - Grinding machine

 References

Jean-Antoine-Brutus Ménier et la Fondation de la Maison Centrale de la Droguerie

https://www.persee.fr/doc/pharm_0035-2349_1984_num_72_263_2427

Brand history – Chocolat Menier 1816

https://www.menier.co.uk/history/

1878 - Paris World Fair

https://www.bie-paris.org/site/en/1878-paris

1878 - Catalogue Officiel de l’Exposition Universelle à Paris: Liste des récompensés

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k64718250.texteImage

Archives départementales de la Seine-et- Marne – Les Meniers, une dynastie industrielle

http://archives.seine-et-marne.fr/la-famille-menier

Oh, patents! A discontinued treat

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

In 2005, for just 4 years, Hershey produced milk-chocolate, candy-coated Kissables®. Kissables® were candy-coated mini Kisses®. However, the trick with chocolate Kissables® was how to coat the bite-sized confections, which had a pointed teardrop shape, in such a way that the confections were evenly coated to the very tip, while retaining the same tear-drop shape throughout the coating process.  

The invention reciting the coating process for chocolate Kissables® is recited in the US patent application  US20080026131A1, titled Process for preparing a sugar coating on an irregular shaped confection.

The patent recites both the formula of two crystallizable sugar coatings and the process for applying the coatings to the confections. A process that essentially comprises spraying of the coatings onto the confections, placed into a rotating pan. The formula of the coatings includes ingredients and quantities for gumming and smoothing syrups. The description of the process includes such details as the speed in feet/minute of the rotating pans containing the  chocolate confections, the proportion of air and formula solids atomized, the size of the atomizer nozzle through which the formula solids pass, the volume in microns of the droplets sprayed onto the confections, the atomizing air pressure in psi units, the dew point temperature of the atomization, such that it will allow the ingredients to dry properly on the surface of the confection -- without melting the chocolate center! 

Otherwise, Kissables® also had a bulging base (also termed rounded or curved out, or convex), intended to prevent the coated confections from sticking together in a production defect termed “doubling”. The contoured base was produced via known techniques in the confectioner’s art, prior to the coating processes of the invention. 

Below, the abstract of the patent application is included together with the patent drawing of the Kissable® confection. An image of the marketed product is included above. 

The present invention is directed to a process for forming a hard sugar coating on an irregularly shaped chocolate confection which tapers into a pointed tip on said confection on a non-base portion thereof, which comprises forming a rounded contour on the base thereof and applying at least two coating syrups and preferably three coating syrups onto the surface of the confections under specific conditions and optionally polishing said confection. The present invention is also directed to the product formed from the process.[Abstract US20080026131A1]

Reference

Hershey

https://www.hersheys.com/en_us/home.html