Jean-Baptiste Quéruel (23 November 1779 – 20 June 1845) was the inventor of the method for industrial production of
sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose
Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
from
beet
The beetroot (British English) or beet (North American English) is the taproot portion of a '' Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''vulgaris'' plant in the Conditiva Group. The plant is a root vegetable also known as the table beet, garden beet, dinner ...
.
Quéruel was born on 23 November 1779 in
Normandy
Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy.
Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...
at the hamlet of La Perrochère in
Saint-Quentin-les-Chardonnets, the son of Jacques Queruel and Marie Anne Lebarbé (or Lebarbey).
Around the beginning of the 19th century, Quéruel was hired by
Benjamin Delessert in his sugar factory at
Passy
Passy () is an area of Paris, France, located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, 16th arrondissement, on the Rive Droite, Right Bank. It is adjacent to Auteuil, Paris, Auteuil to the southwest, and Chaillot to the northeast.
It is home to many ...
, where he succeeded, by the end of 1811, in developing the process that would lead to the manufacture of sugar on an industrial scale from
sugar beet
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together with ...
, providing for the first time the impetus for the mass-production of this new sort of sugar.
Quéruel had married, on 22 April 1815 in Paris, Françoise Marie Lebaudy, the daughter of Pierre and Marie Jeanne Lebaudy Gallier, and the cousin of the prominent Lebaudy family of sugar-makers. He died on 20 June 1845 in his home of La Bichetière, in
Tinchebray, and was buried with his wife in the cemetery of Les Montiers. His birthplace still exists, with a street of Tinchebray given his name.
1779 birthshttps://gaia.orne.fr/mdr/index.php/docnumViewer/calculHierarchieDocNum/372329/1057:358363:371981:372329/1080/1920
1845 deaths
People from Orne
19th-century French inventors
Sugar technologists
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