Business

The South African businessman who saved Le Creuset

Shaun Jacobs • 23 August 2025

In the mid-1980s, French culinary giant Le Creuset was on the ropes. Despite its colourful cast iron products being cultural icons, the company’s financials revealed it was burdened with huge debts and family infighting.

Amidst this turmoil, a young South African businessman, Paul van Zuydam, visited the factory in secret as he was chairman and CEO of homeware giant Prestige.

After being tipped off by a former colleague in Paris that Le Creuset was in deep trouble, Van Zuydam thought he would make a play for the French icon.

He was captivated by the complex manufacturing process, with the cast iron being meticulously shaped and tested for quality before the colourful enamel is carefully sprayed on.

To this day, every single Le Creuset cast iron product is carefully measured and checked by staff in Fresnoy-le-Grand.

If any defect is noticed, the pot or pan is simply thrown into a heap to be melted down and recast. It is estimated that Le Creuset has an astonishing 25% reject rate at its factory, with zero wastage as the pots and pans can simply be melted down and reblasted.

The Wall Street Journal went behind the scenes of the famous manufacturing process, with all Le Creuset cast iron products still being made in the small French town. Only its ceramic products are made elsewhere, in Thailand.

Van Zuydam was overwhelmed by the manufacturing process, noticing that the colour of the pots was seen as secondary by employees, with the craftsmanship taking centre stage.

He immediately went to negotiate a deal to buy the company on behalf of Prestige without seeing the company’s financials.

Van Zuydam’s colleagues at Prestige were sceptical, saying the pots were too heavy and that they had only heard of the brand through their wives.

Regardless, he was successful in his offer, securing the deal with Le Creuset’s management. However, there was one problem. Prestige had just been bought by an American tobacco company, and the French workers were not happy about it.

The factory workers promptly went on strike after hearing an American company was set to buy Le Creuset, putting the deal on ice.

Van Zuydam took matters into his own hands in 1988 and left Prestige, got approval from the French government, and acquired Le Creuset in his personal capacity.

Since then, the company has doubled the capacity of its French factory and significantly expanded its range of products. Each day, over 20,000 Le Creuset products are manufactured at its facility.

Le Creuset told the Wall Street Journal that it now makes around $850 million in revenue each year, with Van Zuydam still part of its daily operations at the age of 87.

Crucially, the company has undergone significant expansion since 2001, all without relying on any external debt, putting Le Creuset on solid financial ground for the future.

The rescue of Le Creuset

Le Creuset’s historic foundry in Fresnoy-le-Grand

Van Zuydam was an unexpected candidate to take over Le Creuset, despite his history within the homeware industry.

He is far from native to France, growing up as one of seven children on a farm in South Africa before spending time in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe.

Little else is known about Van Zuydam’s personal history, with him making very few public appearances, granting few interviews, and solely keeping his focus on Le Creuset.

This is in stark contrast to Le Creuset’s history, which has operated out of Fresnoy-le-Grand since being founded by two Belgians in 1925.

In the 1920s, Fresnoy-le-Grand was at a crossroads of major shipping routes for iron, coke, and sand – essential ingredients for making cast iron.

What made Le Creuset different was the application of enamel on the outside of its cast-iron pots, making them colourful. The first such public example was a pot in ‘Volcanic Flame’ orange.

To manufacture their cast-iron cookware, the Le Creuset foundry uses standard sand casting methods. After hand finishing, items are sprayed with at least two coats of enamel.

The Le Creuset Signature range of cast iron cookware is coated in a minimum of three coats of enamel.

After surviving through WWII, Le Creuset began to grow rapidly and snapped up local competitors. It also gradually expanded its range to include grills and fondue sets.

In 1958 the company produced its first casserole pot, which would go on to become the symbol of its iconic cast-iron kitchenware.

The colourful Le Creuset pots, coupled with their durability, became a cultural icon, being used by some of the first culinary TV stars such as Elizabeth David and Julia Child.

A recreation of Julia Child’s kitchen can be seen in The National Museum of American History in Washington, with her favourite Le Creuset cooking pot taking centre stage.

However, this growth soon hit a wall – family infighting. The company’s financial health deteriorated rapidly, enabling Van Zuydam to make his play for Le Creuset.

Van Zuydam’s playbook for saving the company was to focus on what made it unique – its colour. Many other companies produced high-quality cast-iron pots, but none could do it with colour like Le Creuset.

It is difficult to apply enamel to a cast-iron pot, as the materials expand at different rates under heat. To this day, Le Creuset keeps its secret as to how its enamel can handle this without cracking, claiming that the more the product is used, the more durable it is.

Apart from focusing on Le Creuset’s colourful nature, Van Zuydam concentrated the company’s production back in its historical base in Fresnoy-le-Grand.

Until 1992, the company’s growth had resulted in it opening up manufacturing sites across France, and it even had a bottle-opener subsidiary in Texas.

Van Zuydam’s decision to concentrate production in one region significantly cut costs, drove efficiencies, and enabled the company to invest in making everything itself.

Van Zuydam also pushed the automation of cast-iron manufacturing, enabling him to cut staff overheads by 10%.

Crucially, Le Creuset began to focus on sales outside of Europe. While keeping high-quality production in France, the company started to push its products to the United States and Asia.

Van Zuydam also pushed the expansion into ceramics and other non-iron cookware to diversify Le Creuset’s offering and ensure the repeatability of customers.

Despite being 87 years old and having his son, Paulo, heavily involved in the business, Van Zuydam is still involved in the company’s day-to-day operations and has no plans to slow down.