Arnaud Soubeyran
Arnaud Soubeyran is the oldest nougat house in Montélimar, the town in the Drôme that gave French nougat its name. Founded in 1837 and still family-run, the house makes soft nougat, calissons and chocolate-coated marshmallows by hand, slowly, in copper cauldrons, from almonds, honey and egg whites.
The house
The story begins in 1837, when a confectioner named Arnaud married Mademoiselle Soubeyran and the two set up one of the first workshops to make Montélimar nougat on a larger scale, insisting from the start on quality local ingredients. The business passed through several hands over the following century: Marguerite, who ran it into her nineties; her son-in-law Jean Abel Pinchard; then Alfred Cru, who revived production with the soft and hard nougats cooked in copper pans that remain the house signature. In 1956, Cru famously presented a 26-kilogram nougat yacht to Grace Kelly.
After difficult years in the 1970s, Charles Brotte bought the factory at auction in 1980 and restored Cru's recipes, developing the brand alongside his son Jean-Pierre. Since 2000 the house has been led by Caroline and Didier Honnoré, who opened a free nougat museum on the site in 2005. The next generation has since joined: Quentin, a trained chocolate-maker and confectioner, in 2013, and Thomas, who planted 17 hectares of organic almond trees and set up beehives in the Drôme Provençale in 2017, so that the house now grows part of its own almonds and honey.
Method has changed very little. Nougat and calissons are still cooked gently in copper cauldrons and double boilers, the slow, low-temperature cooking that gives Montélimar nougat its tender bite. The house's own words for its state of mind are transmission, creation and innovation, and its current projects include organic confectionery and a shift to renewable energy at the factory.
What they make
On Clipperton you will find the core of the Soubeyran range. The soft nougat comes as a 50 g bar and a 100 g bar, as a display box of 40 individually wrapped pieces, and as a one-kilogram bulk pack for shops, gifting or generous households. Every piece is handmade in Montélimar with natural ingredients.
From Provence's other great confection, the calisson, the house offers the traditional recipe of candied fruit and almonds in a gift box of twelve, a tutti-frutti version made with mixed candied fruits, and a display box of twenty. There are also orange-blossom marshmallows coated in chocolate, presented in a counter display.
- Soft Montélimar nougat: bars, display box and bulk
- Calissons: traditional, tutti-frutti and display box
- Chocolate-coated guimauves (marshmallows)
The full range is in the Arnaud Soubeyran collection.
Why Clipperton chose them
Clipperton is a family importer, and we look for makers whose name still means something in their own town. In Montélimar, the Soubeyran name has meant nougat since 1837, and the family running the house today grows its own almonds and keeps its own bees. That is the kind of direct, rooted craft we want to bring to Canada and the United States, without shortcuts and without imitation. We wrote more about the house in our Journal: Arnaud Soubeyran: French Confectionery Excellence.
