They are relatively expensive but sell like hotcakes. “We have a lot of requests. Some models leave in four minutes online as soon as they are restocked”, confirms Jean-Henri Pagnon, the founder of JHP Workshop. In Saint-André-des-eaux, near Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique), this cutlery is more and more talked about with its atypical knives whose handle is made of morta wood. The dead? An oak wood in the process of fossilization extracted from the peat of the marshes, the marshes of Brière in this case.
“About 5,000 years ago, there was an oak forest here in Brière. The trees fell to the rhythm of the storms and, as they fell, they remained imprisoned in the peat, sheltered from air and water,” explains Jean-Henri Pagnon. The result gives a dense wood, loaded with silica, with a very characteristic black color. “This wood has survived the centuries. He knew the Vikings, the Middle Ages, the Revolution and he is still doing very well today. Its history is exceptional, that’s what gives it its incredible nobility”, enthuses the entrepreneur who had a “real revelation” in 2009 when he discovered the existence of the morta while reading a work of the writer Alphonse de Châteaubriant.
Authorized by the trade union commission of the great Brière mottière, the extraction of fossilized wood is carried out using only a few traditional tools. First you have to probe the peat soil, tirelessly, every 30 cm. “The trunks are about a meter deep. When you feel resistance, you’ve found one. It is then necessary to dig along its entire length, between 5 and 10 meters, to free it. It’s very trying, we end the day covered in dirt and exhausted,” says Jean-Henri Pagnon who, with his team of eight employees, repeats the operation several times a year. It must be said that only 20% of the trunk can then be exploited, after having been previously stored and dried for two years. Each trunk thus allows the production of around 200 knives, shaped by hand in the workshop.
Craft knives are popular
The range, which includes a thirty models, is available from the kitchen knife to the trapper’s knife, including the “personal all-purpose knife”. Artisanal products, accessible from 95 to 780 euros, which seduce customers, as evidenced by the “public price” obtained in November at the Made in France fair in Paris. If the storytelling of the morta largely contributes to the success of the trademark morta knives, the fashion for artisanal knives is no stranger to this. “I have the feeling that when you are worried about the future, you cling to the values of the past. One of these values is the memory of the grandfather with his knife in his pocket. We have gone beyond the simple utilitarian function. »
Some 6,000 knives per year are now made by Atelier JHP. To continue its growth, the company now aims to move into much larger and more functional premises. Without straying from the Brière marshes. “When I started, the morta was very little known, remembers Jean-Henri Pagnon. It was exploited a little as firewood but, apart from that, it did not interest many people. Since then, this unique wood has attracted people and our business has developed a lot, faster than expected in any case. »