Entrepreneurship runs in the family for the Piché and Létourneau clan. While they already owned a sugar bush in Saint-Norbert-d’Arthabaska, Christine and her daughters decided in 2023 to purchase a business they already held dear: Passion Savon. At the time, former owner and founder, Mélanie Messier, was running her soap-making shop alone, doing all the manufacturing herself. Her business kept expanding, and she was looking for buyers who shared her vision to carry the torch and continue to grow Passion Savon’s potential.
That’s where Christine Piché enters the story. She had recently left the accounting services business she started 15 years earlier to devote herself to the sugar bush she runs with her partner. On the large, forested property, she had an idea: what if they installed a yurt to host groups? This project added to another plan of Christine’s: finding a product to manufacture on the sugar bush site during the eight months of the year it is not operational. And as fate would have it, her path crossed Mélanie’s at just the right time—Mélanie approached her about giving a yoga class in the yurt. It was then that Christine learned Passion Savon was for sale and immediately recognized the opportunity she’d been looking for.
When Christine presented her buyout plan to her daughter Moly Létourneau, Moly was both available and keen to join the adventure. At age 21, Moly had taken a break after finishing CEGEP to figure out her career plans. When her mother offered a business partnership, Moly jumped at the chance; she had always been driven and hard-working, so acquiring a business seemed like the obvious path. Then her younger sister, 17-year-old Maé Létourneau, joined the plan, taking on the role of a minority shareholder.
Once they made their decision, Mélanie was quick to sell Passion Savon to them, and everything else happened very fast: after finalizing the transaction, the mother-and-daughters trio got to work, moving the business to their buildings on the sugar bush site. In the end, only two months passed between the day they reached an agreement with the former owner and the day they took over management of the soap-making shop! Fortunately, from product fabrication to relocating—and all the process improvements and moral support—their entire circle pitched in to help. That’s not to mention Mélanie’s invaluable mentorship: “Without her, we wouldn’t have bought it. If she hadn’t been so grounded in her values, we wouldn’t have this wonderful company with such high-quality products,” Moly notes. For a month, the founder guided them through the transition, passing on her knowledge and advising them so they could take Passion Savon even further—something they have more than demonstrated their ability to do.
Indeed, the new owners have set themselves the mission of making their products more practical by introducing items that make bar soaps easier to use and extend their lifespan. Beyond handmade body and household goods, the Passion Savon team now offers yoga classes in the yurt, a micro-adventure in partnership with Tourisme Victoriaville et sa région, soap-making workshops, and even rentals of their facilities for group or corporate events such as retreats.
There is plenty of room to grow their service offerings, and the three owners have numerous ideas in the works, but the first project to materialize will be the opening of a self-service boutique in a shipping container in Victoriaville. For now, Christine, Moly, and Maé celebrated their first anniversary as owners of Passion Savon this past July, proud of their achievements and filled with big dreams.
passionsavon.ca
passionsavon.ca
