Duralex is the little tempered glass found everywhere from French school cafeterias to Parisian bistros—and once you start looking at its history, it becomes a surprisingly revealing story about modern France.

After decades of globalization, disastrous ownership and repeated financial crises, Duralex’s own employees stepped in to save the company, transforming it into a worker cooperative and investing their own money. Now soaring energy costs have put the French icon in danger again.

Caroline and Emily unpack why France cares so deeply about an inexpensive water glass—and somehow end up discussing Stanley Cups, the American obsession with hydration, French distrust of ice, cafeteria lunches, James Bond and the secret childhood game hidden on the bottom of every Duralex glass.

Podcast Show Notes

Duralex was officially launched in 1945, but its origins stretch back to a Loire Valley vinegar maker who needed bottles. Its tempered glass eventually became synonymous with French cafés, schools and institutional dining.

In this episode:

• How Duralex became a postwar French design icon
• The disastrous ownership period that helped push the company into decades of instability
• Why energy costs are particularly dangerous for glass manufacturing
• How Duralex became a worker-owned cooperative
• Why tiny French water glasses horrify Americans
• The myth of drinking eight glasses of water every day
• Why some French people avoid water or ice with meals
• Duralex at MoMA—and in Skyfall
• The number underneath every Duralex glass and the French childhood game attached to it

Key Takeaways

• Duralex is not merely inexpensive glassware; it has become part of French everyday cultural identity.
• The company has survived repeated financial crises, ownership changes and receiverships.
• In 2024, employees reorganized Duralex as a worker cooperative, preserving 250 jobs.
• Glass manufacturing requires enormous amounts of energy, making Duralex particularly vulnerable to energy-price volatility.
• The American “eight glasses of water a day” rule is not the clear-cut health requirement many Americans assume it is.
• Drinking water with a meal does not dilute stomach acid, despite a persistent French belief that it does.
• The mysterious number underneath a Duralex glass inspired a generations-old French school cafeteria game.

Bonjour, Emily.

Bonjour, Caroline.

We're the fishwives of Paris and today we're going to be talking about why Trump's bullshit might finally destroy a nearly century old beloved French institution.

Oh my God.

Well, before we dig into that, we're going to dig into our co host here, Caroline Fasali, who a professional digger or was former archaeologist.

Did you know she dug in Pompeii?

Did you know that?

I didn't, but now I do.

She's also an Oxford grad, which I did know where she was a blind wine tasting champ.

I was a wizard.

And you are?

Emily Monaco.

Emily is an international cheese judge and a culinary journalist who's been published across the board in many different publications, including the BBC and the Michelin Guide.

You are actually French, Legally.

And together we unpack what's going on in French food and wine.

And I think we really reached some interesting conclusions about what that means about French culture.

It's becoming a very interesting, Very interesting.

Absolutely.

And I'm really excited to be here today because we are taking advantage of one of our new formats, this atable format where we meet via webcam instead of in the beautiful studio in Leon where Caroline does run Leon wine tastings.

If you're ever in Leon.

It's true, you can hang out in our studio where we film the fancies if you want to, by going to leonwinetastings.com and paying for a ticket to go to a wine tasting.

It's super, super fun.

It is, it's very fun.

But today we are taking advantage of the fact that even though we're not in the same place, we can talk to each other because something pretty newsworthy is happening.

Duralex, which I have a little Duralex glass right here.

These are the ubiquitous Duralux glasses that you'll find all over France.

Duralex is a glass company.

So when we say glass for those who are listening and not watching, we mean like water glasses.

We mean those really classic French cafe water glasses which we actually do have at Leon wine tastings.

That's what you get your water in.

And Duralex is on the chopping board again.

So it's, it's had, it's had a hard road.

Yeah.

And so what is receivership?

This is something that is a French thing.

It's redressement judiciaire.

And it's like a Chapter 11 bankruptcy so it allows an insolvent company to continue operating under someone assigned by the court while it tries to figure its shit out.

The difference between this and chapter 11 is that the court gives control to usually an external figure, whereas the chapter 11 management would usually stay the same.

The purpose of this kind of action is to save the company and to save the employees.

It is to protect Duralex.

And this is something that you see relatively frequently in France.

Yeah.

So this is a company with a pretty long history that wasn't always so bumpy roaded.

And we're definitely going to have to do an episode all about the Loire Valley's link with vinegar.

That's really interesting and I actually kind of love that.

It's like, okay, we're making vinegar, we need bottles, we might as well make the bottles.

That's very enterprising.

It's smart.

And that's exactly what happened.

So then they, you know, engineered this glass, sold that company to a perfumer.

Also needs good glass.

Makes sense.

This is like the French version of Pyrex.

So it is a special kind of glass that is honestly pretty unbreakable.

Like, it's really, it's really good stuff.

Yeah.

It's called Vertrampet, which we call tempered glass.

These days, this innovation, so again patented by Saint Gobin, is used for things like phone booths or passenger side car windows.

So what it essentially does is, and you can hear it kind of in the way that the company is named Duralex.

So, so durable.

The idea is that when you drop a Duralex glass, and I say when because these are glasses that are used in school cafeterias or in bistros.

When you drop one, rather than break into many, many really, really sharp fragments, it breaks into sort of more like granular chunks.

So it's less dangerous.

Basically.

I've never broken one of these.

They are pretty, pretty durable.

They are.

They are sturdy.

I've never, you know, dropped one onto tile from a great height.

But I.

We break wine glasses all the time at Leon wine tastings.

We've never broken one of these.

Yeah, I mean, recommendation, don't drop Duralex from a height, but if you drop it, it should be okay.

The patent was actually filed in June of that year.

And there were two big sort of styles of glass that Duralex became known for.

The first is the Gigagne style, which is the more rounded style.

And you will see that occasionally.

But I think the one that everybody kind of knows is the Picardy style.

The Picardy is beautiful.

And can you show it to us again, Emily, and I'll describe it for our listeners?

Yes.

So the Picardy, it's sort of small.

It's almost tulip shaped.

And it has like.

Again, like sort of petals around the side as a texture.

So it has these panels and then there's the.

The rim is a solid sort of texture.

I don't know if that makes sense.

It's hard to describe a water glass.

You sound like you're on the Home Shopping Network.

Yeah, exactly.

Nine panels.

Nine panels.

Glints in the light.

I love it.

It's a glass.

It's very beautiful.

It is a beautiful glass.

They're stackable.

They are very practical.

And I think they're awesome, I have to say.

Yeah.

And they really are ubiquitous in France.

So the golden age of Duralex was kind of this period that we know of in French as the Trente glorieuse, the Glorious 30, which is really the period of economic growth that picked up once the final devastating repercussions of World War II had ended.

And it kind of continues until the repercussions of the Wall street crash really hit France.

So we have this period of three decades where France is growing, booming economically.

And during this time, Duralex opened a second production site.

They even earned an award at the Cannes Film Festival for one of their ad campaigns.

So they were doing pretty well.

And then in the 70s, the economics of France started sucking for everybody.

Just globalization is a big part of this story, too.

Keeping factories alive was a big part of the seventies.

Or killing them.

Right.

And so in this case, what we saw was like a slight downturn in the 70s.

But, you know, the company survived it.

Things started to become more precarious financially.

The production sites started to be threatened with closure.

Sort of the beginning of the real end for Duralex started when things.

Emily, it's not the end.

It's not the end.

It's not over.

Okay, sorry.

You're right.

The beginning of this particular downturn for Duralex.

Let's not, let's not put, put things into the universe that we don't want to be there.

And that's when the company was sold to a Turkish wholesaler who absolutely decimated the company.

Okay.

So he shut down the factory in Saint Etienne, which I think you said you drove past the other day.

Yeah, I drove past that with my friend Fabian who's from there, and he was like, yeah, it was bought by like an Indian company.

I think, like obviously there was crossed wires, but that, that just shuttered everything.

And basically broke down all of the machines, sold them in Turkey for 20% under market value.

And how did that happen?

It's.

I mean, he's in jail now.

Okay.

He made female workers iron the men, the male workers clothes.

No.

And so he was arrested.

So I guess he's actually not in prison anymore.

He was in prison and he is.

He's out of the fucking country.

Fuck you.

I mean, I hope so too.

So from, from this point onwards, the company basically has not been able to get itself back up.

So much darker than I was expecting.

Oh, it's terrible.

It's terrible.

Yeah.

So from here it's been kind of a musical chairs of different investors.

We had a Franco British investor who purchased the company with support from Lebanese importers.

This sort of coalition invested more than 6 billion euros to help develop the company.

We have a culture of trying to protect businesses that have cultural value.

Exactly.

And this does.

It's really iconic.

And so I do think that, you know, it's.

There is a real investment in, from a governmental standpoint, from a judiciary standpoint, to actually help businesses survive tough times.

There is, and unfortunately we have major overarching problems.

There's something else brewing in the world that makes it hard to make glass.

Trump, you know, just.

Sorry, this is.

I screamed at the mic.

I mean it's please, it's screen.

It's Trump's, it's Trump's, it's the, it's Ukraine and now it's Iran.

Like, it's, it's oil, it's energy.

These are, these are lit by forges.

We need a lot of energy to produce glass.

You need fire, which is also, it's like probably not particularly sustainable, but this is expensive to produce and it is completely at the whim of energy costs.

I do think it is interesting, you know, I'm here as a foreigner, but the foreigners are the ones who led all this down downhill.

Like, like maybe keeping this in house in France would have kept at least like the, I don't know, the.

Yeah, the care.

And that's one thing that we have really seen with Duralek.

So it, it's that, you know, here's my elder millennial showing.

It's the I get knocked down, but I get up again.

You're never gonna keep me down.

That kind of mentality with Duralex.

So in all through all of this, what we've really seen is that the employees want to keep Duralex alive.

And it's not just because it's their job.

It's because they're proud of making this sort of time tested thing, which has huge cultural impacts in France, which we're going to talk about a little bit later on in this episode.

It is basically where the employees are, the shareholders.

They own shares in the company and they collectively own the company.

That's a big shift from all of these international takeovers.

That's a big shift from being handed from, you know, one shitty boss to another that don't even live here.

Right.

And that kept the company from being liquidated.

Right.

And it kept what?

250 Employees in their jobs?

Yeah, exactly.

So we transitioned to this specific kind of cooperative called a SCOP.

All 250 employees were able to keep their jobs.

Most of them invested their.

Well, most 60% of them.

So most invested their own funds.

So somewhere between 500 and €2,000 each.

By transitioning to a SCOP, they also became eligible for certain state funds.

So the region, which in this case would be the centre, Val du Loire and the city of Orleans, both invested to try and keep Duralex afloat and to keep it French and to keep it local.

But this past June, despite all of this investment and despite all of this action on the part of the workers themselves, the company was placed into receivership.

Again, so the third time in just six years.

So sad.

I feel so sad for them, like they're doing everything they can and it is such an iconic product and it's just like, I really do wonder if Trump's bullshit in Iran wasn't happening, if they would have been able to survive this year.

Because this is really just happening right now.

So it's on, it's on the market, right?

It's on the market.

So basically in May of this year, the employees only got half of their salaries and ever since they've been looking for another buyer.

And we do have at least one person who has sort of said, hey, I am excited about this, I'm willing to invest.

And so I think you know a bit about this guy Jonathan.

I'm like so curious about this guy.

Jonathan.

Call us, tell us your story.

So, you know, it's like consolidation is this big scary word.

And when I was reading about this, I was like, oh, I don't know if this is going to be another foreign takeover.

It's Carimo Group.

So that sounds like an Italian name.

But Jonathon Carlesimo is the head of this group and he's like, I, like, I.

He's must not be 40.

He's probably younger than we are.

He's a baby.

He's totally baby faced too.

But he's this young guy and he is based actually in La Tallodier, which is.

Or his company is based in, which is where the old factory is, which is interesting.

So there's definitely some emotional resonance here with him.

I'm sure we're gonna put feelings in his heart.

It's like words in your mouth.

But we're just gonna put some feelings in his heart that he feels a connection to Duralex as, as a brand.

But what's so cool that makes me actually feel really excited about this and I kind of, I hope he gets it, is he's like, he's like this, like really ambitious taking over a lot of different things, but he's taking over industrial foundries.

Like it's all about like metal and foundries and forges.

And so they actually have a really unique expertise that might not have been glass and had nothing to do with cookware, but, but they do know how to make things with forges.

And the forge, the forge seems to be a big part of the problem with energy and all of that.

So I'm really wondering, can he, with his unique expertise can he be the one to bring it back to life?

And I, I think it's really cool.

I hope he gets it.

I'm down, Jonathan.

Yeah, yeah.

It's so cool.

It's just like.

It's interesting too.

I wasn't expecting to be, like, delighted by finding out about this company because I was like another, you know, coming in.

But I do.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's cool.

Why not?

I like it.

And I like the fact that he, I mean, put a little care in his heart.

I think it might already be there.

The French are a little less effusive about things like this than the Americans are.

But he did.

He is quoted as having said that he is convinced Duralex is still savable, which feels like he's got a little hope in his heart and he's got 5 million euros to invest in the company.

It's easy to give French people shit for, for their, you know, four hour workday and vacations that never end and this and that.

But like, the people at the top of the businesses are ambitious.

If you have a business in France, you have to be ambitious because it's so fucking hard.

Like, I look at my, my husband and his brother in their wine shop, like they're hustlers also.

Jonathan, if you ever listen to this, you're not far from Lyon.

We gotta sell you some wine.

We have the best wine.

You need a good Cavist.

We'll find out hopefully in September what's happened with this.

So Fish Wives, stay tuned.

We're recording this right now.

At the end of July, Companies have until August 6th to apply to take over this company, to take over Duralex.

So Jonathan might get it, somebody else might get it.

We might hear about it in August, we might hear about it in September.

It might be until October.

Because time in France functions as it will, especially in August.

August doesn't exist.

Speaking of the four, four hour workday.

So if you're, if you're listening in the future, you might hear more news from us now.

If you're listening in the future and you don't hear more news from us now, it's because there's no more news to report at this time.

So we're sitting here, this is Fish Wives.

We talk about French food and wine.

Like, why do we care about this company?

Why do we care about this brand?

What is so special about Duralex?

I think there's two major components to why we care about Duralex culturally.

And the first is something that I Think Americans care about more than the French do, which is the fact that these glasses.

And again, if you're watching online, you can see how tiny this glass is as compared to my face.

For example, if you are listening, this holds approximately one cup, like one.

One volume cup of water.

Really?

Not less than that.

It's probably about 4 inches tall, right?

Yeah, it's little.

It's little.

It's little tiny.

When you're in France, you always get free water, right?

Or you always have water.

Water is offered to you, and it is often served to you in the teeniest, tiniest fucking glass you've ever seen.

I mean, comically small from an American standpoint.

When you come to France and you see that this is the glass that you're supposed to drink your water out of as an American, you're like, but what about my eight glasses?

What about my 64 ounces of water a day?

How many glasses would you have to drink of out of that glass to get your.

I have a Stanley cup right now with me to fill up a Stanley Cup.

It would take forever.

Wait, this is.

This is literally the best illustration of you, except that I am a thirsty bitch.

But, like, this is the French water, water volume, and that's the American.

And I've drained this thing well.

And Americans seem to believe that we need to drink 64 ounces of water a day.

And it turns out this is bullshit.

That's not the same.

It's not the same.

No.

But somehow we settled down on this, like, eight glasses of water per day.

And the reality is that Americans are very responsive to this kind of messaging.

We like being told, like, if you eat five fruits and vegetables, if you drink 64 ounces of water, you will live forever and be beautiful and nothing bad will ever happen to you.

We love supplements.

We do, we do.

We like taking things like, oh, in, you know, traditional Ayurvedic cuisine, we have turmeric paired with black pepper because the piperine activates the curcumin in turmeric.

And so we're going to put this all in a capsule that you can take with your Stanley cup and distill the benefits of food into a pill.

We're joyless.

Is what you're saying, correct.

Perfect.

The horrors.

And in France, obviously, food is not fuel in the same way.

And so, you know, the water also is considered to interfere with your digestion, which is true.

Well, so again, the French have this idea that, that, yeah, if you drink water during meals, it dilutes your stomach acid.

But that is true.

It's not true.

So according to the French government health poll, drinking water while you eat does not dilute your stomach acid.

It does make you feel fuller.

So that's.

You know, something?

The.

I've.

I've met some older French people who believe that drinking water while you eat makes you.

Rust.

No.

Where?

I don't know.

Where are you?

I think it's just an.

I think it's just an excuse to drink more wine.

Rust.

I. I like.

Your joints get rusty.

Like, where?

I don't know.

I think they're just being facetious.

I'm pretty rusty these days, I gotta say.

But either way, basically, in America, we have this idea that you must drink 64 ounces of water a day.

In France, we say, you know, don't drink water during meals.

The reality is that you should drink when you're thirsty.

If you're thirsty, you probably already should have been drinking.

But we also get a lot of our water from food, like watermelon and cucumber.

But if you're American and you only eat processed grains and sugar, you probably don't get any water from your food.

So imagine like, like the average crappy American diet, which I don't think actually reflective of what most people eat and certainly isn't reflective of what fish wives are eating.

We know you like to cook and you like to eat, but, you know, they're not getting as much water if you're eating a lot of processed food.

Because.

Because the water is in vegetables, right?

Yes, the water is in vegetables and fruits.

And if you're eating processed food, you're probably also getting a lot of salt.

So you're probably not getting enough water.

And French people think we are insane for our water obsession.

And they often also are very suspicious of ice.

They don't like ice.

They don't think it's.

That's good for digestion.

Although, hashtag, not all French.

My husband is obsessed with our ice machine and the, like, cold, filtered water in our fridge.

Like, he loves it.

He's obsessed.

I hate ice.

I hate cold water.

You're too French now.

I know, I know.

I think one other piece of this puzzle to remember, though, as an American, when you come to France and You aren't getting a big enough water glass.

Is that in America, someone is constantly appearing behind you to refill your water glass.

In France, you get.

So when you sit down at a restaurant, you order your water, you can either order a bottle of water, like mineral water, or you can get a cahaf, which is literally tap water, and you refresh your glass yourself.

Unless you're in a Michelin starred restaurant.

You know, we, if we are not drinking alcohol when we go out, we will order a bottle of water in order to just, you know, give the restaurant some, some money for our drinks.

But like, the carafes are fine.

I love it when Americans come here and they're like, can I drink the water in France?

Where do you think we are?

Like, Evian is from here?

Like, what are you talking about?

Can you drink the water in Paris?

Thank you, Houseman.

Yes, you can.

Yeah.

I'd rather drink Paris than in the States.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

So even though they're not, you know, downing the Stanley Cups, they do drink water and they drink it from these cute little glasses.

And these cute little glasses are indeed a design and even a cultural touchstone for the French.

So from a design perspective, there are Duralex glasses actually in quite a few design museums around the world.

And the Paris's Musee des Arts Decoratif also has one.

The MOMA also has the nine sided tulip Picardy.

They even made a cameo in a James Bond film in Skyfall.

Wow.

I mean, they're everywhere.

And you know, they're in institutions too.

Like, if you're buying bulk glasses, you're, you know, you're getting Duralex, right?

Yeah.

Like where, where would you see them in your lifetime as a French?

Where will my child see them?

You will see that you will see them from, from birth to death because you're going to see them in retirement homes and you're going to see them in school cafeterias, which makes sense.

It's in the name.

They're durable.

You can put hot liquids in them, you can put cold liquids in them.

They are microwave safe and they do not shatter.

So you, you know, my first encounter that I remember with a Dural glass was literally in the school cafeteria, where.

I mean, be jealous, Americans.

When you go to the school cafeteria in France, you get two hours, you get four courses.

We got to do an episode on school lunch.

Let's Wait until my kid is in school, and we can talk about school lunch.

So Fish Wives has to survive just like Duralex for another, what, four or five years till he's in, like, real school.

So we're going to be world famous by then.

I know it's going to be great, and we can do an episode on school lunch.

But when I first went to the school cafeteria, you got water in your Duralex glass.

And kind of the.

The game that everybody played is that you look into the bottom of your glass.

Let me see if I can.

I doubt that my webcam will pick it up.

Maybe it will.

I can see it.

Yeah, you can see it.

So at the bottom of each Duralex glass, there is a number, and this corresponds with the number of either of the machine or the mold that's being used to make this glass.

Reports vary, but it's going to be a number between 1 and 50.

And some reports say that the reason why you have these numbers is so they can tell if one of the machines or one of the molds is on the fritz.

But if you're a French child in school, obviously we don't care about the mold or the machine.

We look into the bottom of our glass, we see the number, and it tells me how old I am, which is one of these things that is just so captivating and makes zero sense.

So if you're five or seven, makes no sense.

But according to my glass, I'm 47.

I think this is a really interesting opportunity to actually, I don't know, have an impact.

I love Duralex.

I think they're awesome.

I use them for Leon wine tastings.

I didn't buy them for our new home, and I don't remember why, but we got something else.

I think we got IKEA glasses because we were at ikea.

So when we were working on this episode, I was like, you know what?

I wanted them.

I. I don't know why I didn't get them.

I think they're awesome.

They're nicer than the glasses that we have.

And so I'm gonna take all of the glasses that we have to.

My husband's, like, the.

The family home in Beaujolais, which only has, like, a mismatch of super old, tiny glasses.

And I'm always wanting bigger glasses.

So I'm gonna take my IKEA ones up there.

And I just placed an order for 12 new big Picardi, so big ones, and then six tiny ones for my son, who is going to have to learn how to use a cup soon.

It's going to be great.

I got little blue ones.

You can get different colors.

And I spent some money.

So Duralex is available everywhere.

Buy it.

It's the best.

It's so great.

You can bring it on picnics, you can serve it with your kids.

You can serve at a dinner party.

They're really awesome.

They also have, like, bowls and cookware.

Like, it's.

It's basically anything Pyrex can do.

Duralex does better.

Buy Duralex.

Let's save this company Fish wives, Like, get you some Duralex.

And if and when we do end up having a.

An online boutique in the States, once Trump is dead and the tariff situation is better, we would love to have some Duralex in our shop because it is iconic and they're awesome.

This sort of iconic sense of what Duralex is, is part of what's kept it alive.

And French people responded so well.

And this is, you know, crowdfunding is not as big a thing here as it is in the States, but French people responded so well.

10,000 French people gave money and in just a few hours they had met their goal and ultimately raised 7 million euros.

That's how important Duralex is.

I really, actually feel excited.

I really hope that Carlesimo Group can turn it around.

And I think that they are actually really uniquely positioned to do so because they are forage specialists.

And it does seem that that is the sticking point, is how to make that feasible in the modern world when energy is what it is.

So I really hope we have a positive update.

No matter what, someone's going to buy it.

And I hope whoever buys it is French.

And, um, I hope they care.

And I hope that we can continue to be using Duralex for many, many years to come.

They really are awesome.

And you should get some.

Yeah.

And I hope whoever buys it as well, whether it's Carles Simo or someone else, keeps it local as well, because I think it is.

It's French pride, but it also really is Loire and Centre Val du Loire pride.

You know, I think it's something that really is associated with that region.

What about this other factory, though?

Like, maybe they could bring that back to life too.

I mean, it's interesting that.

That it's based there and it's this big, empty factory, like, right on the freeway between Lyon and Saint Etienne, is this like dead factory?

Like, it's sad.

It's very sad.

So make it happy again.

Guys, we're gonna put a link in the show notes to places where you can find Duralex online.

If you're in Paris, there are loads of shops where you can pick up unique, multicolored, many sized Duralex.

But use this at home.

I mean, it's great for kids, it's great for families.

Yay, Duralex.

Good luck.

We think you're awesome and we really hope you have better days ahead.

Duralex.

Let's.

Let's just hope, you know, thoughts and prayers, seriously.

So support Doralex and please support Fish Wives.

If you enjoyed this episode, give us a like rate us.

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So support us and we love you Fishwives.

Thank you so much and merci, Emily.

Merci, Caroline.

Au revoir,.