Maison Marc is the last French producer to grow, harvest, and preserve gherkins entirely on its own farm.

The story begins in the 1950s in Chemilly-sur-Yonne, Burgundy, where Marc Jeannequin grew gherkins on his family land for a local cannery. As French gherkin production disappeared in the early 2000s, pushed out by global sourcing, his son Florent Jeannequin became the last remaining grower, determined to keep the crop alive.

In 2012, Henri Jeannequin, Marc’s grandson, took over and rebuilt the model. He eliminated middlemen, brought pickling in-house, and built a canning facility directly on the family farm. Maison Marc was created to restore French gherkins as a finished product, not just a raw ingredient.

Today, all Maison Marc cucumbers are grown without insecticides or herbicides, harvested by hand, and packed immediately after picking. Cucumbers are harvested at different stages: small, firm gherkins become classic cornichons fins, while larger cucumbers are preserved as malossols, a lightly salted style with fuller cucumber flavor and softer acidity.

Maison Marc’s cornichons are now used by leading French chefs and valued for their precision, freshness, and deep connection to place. They are the result of one family choosing to keep a disappearing agricultural tradition alive.