In the early 1960s, there weren't many bars in Libreville offering air conditioning and cold beer. Naming a bar "Frigidaire" was a great marketing coup. One evening, among the establishment's customers seeking to escape the humidity of the Gulf of Guinea, was Pierre Castel, a Frenchman selling entry-level wines imported in bulk from his native Bordeaux. He was around 35, of average height, with thick black eyebrows.
A young man approached him, introduced himself as secretary to the presidency and invited him to the palace the next day. The trader went to the appointment, not really knowing whether this Albert-Bernard Bongo – who would become president, known as Omar Bongo – was a close friend of the president or a swindler. But it was indeed the president of Gabon who received him: Léon Mba was annoyed at having to rely on neighboring Cameroon to supply his country with beer. "Set up a brewery, we'll support you," he challenged Castel, who recounted the anecdote in a rare interview with Le Monde in 2013. Totally inexperienced, the Frenchman threw himself into the adventure in exchange for a plot of land.
That is how the construction of a beer empire began. Sixty years later, it boasts sales of €5 billion and 40,000 employees in some 20 African countries. The surviving wine division is much smaller, but still significant: with sales of €1 billion, it is France's leading brand and Europe's second-largest, thanks to its Baron de Lestac (an anagram of Castel), Malesan and Listel appellations.
Castel, 96, France's 10th richest man according to Challenges magazine (with €13.5 billion in 2022), is obviously not African. But his name is much better known on the African continent than in France. The influence of his breweries is significant in many economies, especially French-speaking ones. His positions can be extremely dominant, even monopolistic. Popular in Abidjan's "maquis" open-air restaurants, Castel's Bock alone accounts for 60% of the Ivorian beer market, according to the company. The same goes for Simba in Lubumbashi's "ndanga" and Pils in Lomé's "foufou-bars." In the Central African Republic and Burkina Faso, Castel is the leading employer.
Jesus Sebastian Castel (Pierre is his Christian name) came from a modest Spanish family who immigrated to France to work in the vineyards of the Bordeaux region, where he was born in October 1926, the sixth of nine siblings. The children helped in the vineyard after school. "I was hungry and ambitious. I didn't want to push a wheelbarrow all my life," he told Challenges magazine.
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