It was in 1860 that Alix Jacquemin founded his Swiss cheese business. Quite soon, he wanted to break away from the traditional practice of storing cheese in barrels (these barrels contained about ten cheese wheels separated by false bottoms of thin spruce strips) and he was the first to innovate rational methods of refining in cellars.

And so, with the help of a coppersmith from Lons-le-Saunier, he designed an oven with a reservoir producing steam that could be sent inside or outside of the cellar as wished.

This was the beginning of the Montmorot (39) ripening cellars.

In 1886, Louis RIVOIRE married the Alix JACQUEMIN's daughter and this started the partnership that kept alive the memory of its founders.

Louis RIVOIRE and his wife developed the business and increased the technical equipment of the ever growing cellars, giving them a thermosiphon heating system inspired from the greenhouse heating system in the city of Lyons.

In 1907, Louis RIVOIRE wished to give an identity to the cheese wheels leaving his cellars. He decided to use the name "la vache" or "cow's milk" as a brand name for his cheese, since many of his customers did not know that, at that time, Rivoire-Jacquemin cheeses were made only with cow's milk.

Five generations later, the Rivoire family, along with 400 milk producers, 25 cheesemakers, 38 employees, head cellarmen, foremen and management personnel as well as 10 salesmen working throughout France and abroad, contribute to the good functioning and the success of the firm.

Sent every day to the four corners of France and Europe and to the United States and, recently, to the Eastern European markets, the great brands of RIVOIRE-JACQUEMIN Comté : Vache Rouge, Vache Bleue, Vache Verte, Chalet Comtois, Comtois, Montciel, Riv-Jac are produced in the greatest Comté ripening cellars, in all 38 cellars with a total surface of nearly 12,000 m² where a controlled temperature of 6° to 18°C is maintained summer and winter.

Today, at RIVOIRE-JACQUEMIN, for an average of eight months, but also up to 30 months, each Comté cheese wheel (weighing an average of 40 kg and requiring 400 liters of milk) is turned over, rubbed with Guérande salt during the pre-ripening and then the ripening phases and finally during the aging phase, taken care of by workers, supervised by cellar managers, followed individually ust like it was done at the time of the founders of the firm.

From 800 tons in 1938, the annual production has risen to 4,300 tons in 2000 (nearly 110,000 cheese wheels) and represents 10 to 12 % of the total Comté production. .