The collection of the Belgorod State Historical and Local History Museum features a box from confectionery products with the trademark of the company “S. SIOU & Co.”

These metal boxes were used to pack sweets for sale. Initially, the boxes were decorated with paper labels, but later the design and advertising information began to be printed directly on the tin using the chromolithography method.

Chromolithography is a color lithography technique, in which a separate printing form is used to apply each color. This technique was widely used in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the early 20th century, the “S. SIOU & Co.” trading house was one of the largest in Russia. Adolphe Siou arrived in Moscow from France in 1853. Together with his wife, Eugénie, he opened a small shop of homemade sweets. When the family business passed on to their sons — Louis, Charles, and Adolphe Jr., they established the factory “S. SIOU and Co.”

For the growing enterprise, land was purchased on the Petersburg highway in Moscow. There, a factory building equipped with the latest technology of the time was constructed in 1884.

By the early 20th century, the trading house “S. SIOU and Co.” produced a wide range of products: chocolate, sweets, cocoa, fruit drops, nougat, mint pastilles, gingerbread, biscuits, and ice cream. Siou’s confectioners offered many original sweets to customers: roasted coffee, creamy caramel, cookies convenient to take on a hike, children’s chocolate sets “Alphabet, ” “History, ” and “Geography” with tasks and puzzles.

Among the desserts from “SIOU” was drinking chocolate, which resembled today’s condensed milk. Its advertisement described it as follows, “Chocolate on condensed milk in the form of dough, packed in a hermetically sealed tin can, convenient for travelers who can always enjoy a cup of delicious chocolate on the go.”

The stores were located in bustling areas of the capital.

The confectionery factory continued to operate during World War I, although with a reduced assortment that included biscuits, cheap candies, and jam. The manufacturers donated significant sums to support the Russian army. After the October Revolution, the factory was nationalized.