The business had been founded in the nineteenth century in the small Alsatian town of Sierentz by one Leopold Dreyfus.
At fifteen, Leopold wheeled barrows of grain from his hometown across the border into Switzerland, where it fetched a higher price.
At age seventeen Leopold Dreyfus left his farm and family and spend several years in the stream of wandering merchants involved in the European grain trade.
He then established his own grain company and took out a large loans. He arrived in Odessa in the 1860s and purchased the bulk of the grain storage bins in the city.
By the 1870s he was contracting for wheat from Russian hinterland, shipping by rail to his storage facilities in Odessa, shipping grain on his freighters and selling future and grain to buyers in Hamburg, Bremen, Berlin, Mannheim, Duisburg and Paris.
Currently Louis Dreyfus Group holds a global position in all areas of energy and agriculture including, production, processing, and merchandising.
History of Louis Dreyfus Company
