Minestrone is a publishing house founded in 2008 by the food photographer Tony Le Duc. Four years earlier, in 2004, Le Duc launched les éditions Homarus. It is in this first era that the international bestsellers were published like the triology (La Base, Le Produit and Le Plat), La Cuisine de Maman, the giftset dedicated to the three-starred Dutch chef Sergio Herman and the luxurious giftset dedicated to the deceased Willy Slawinski. In February 2008, the collections of the des éditions Homarus joined with the new collections of Minestrone. In 2012, Minestrone won the prestigious international ‘Gourmand Cookbook Award’ in the category “Meilleure Société d’Éditions culinaires de l’année”. It was a global recognition made even more remarkable by the fact that publishing companies from 171 different countries figured on the longlist. In their explanation, the jury described Minestrone Cookbooks as « The smallest publishing House in the World, creating unique cookbooks, for nine years, with a maximum of three books a year. Publisher-photographer Tony Le Duc has reached now the highest level of excellence in publishing. »