Abstract
The Lefèvre-Utile Biscuit Co. was a bakery and cookie manufacturer established in Nantes, France in 1846 by Jean-Romain Lefèvre. Today it is known as LU and is a part of Kraft Foods. The name LU comes from Lefèvre and his wife and who was also the first associate, Pauline Utile. Their initials were first utilized by Alfons Mucha for an 1897 calendar ad for the Lefèvre-Utile Biscuit Co. Louis Lefèvre-Utile, the founder's son, took over the family company and eventually it was bought by Generale Biscuit S.A. which in turn was sold to Groupe Danone in 1986. Although an international brand today, the primary market for distribution of Lu is in Western Europe. In November 2007, LU was sold to Kraft Foods. Since its incorporation to the group Krafts Foods, the company has become the world leader in biscuit manufacturing. In 2004, the staff was about 3 300 employees for an annual production of 232 000 tonnes. In 2004, the turnover of the company was 1249 million. In 1998, the figure was 5 billion francs (762 million euros) for the entire range LU including 400 million francs of sales made by the product Prince, the first reference in the range.
