Baking & Snack - September 2014 - 84

Q&A: BAKERY DE FRANCE

known about how this formula is going to fare. It's during this part of the new product development process
where science meets art.

How do you balance Old World baking
processes against the need for automation?
You need to fully partner with equipment manufacturers.
There's no doubt about it. The bakers cannot do it without
equipment companies, and the equipment companies cannot progress without bakers. Unfortunately, in the last century, there was a bit of mistrust between the two. When the
artisan phenomena came out of mid-sized bakeries that
were making products by hand and needed to automate
because of pricing and the need to produce products for
the masses, this sort of mistrust had to be put aside.
I know we work very closely with some of our suppliers. We needed to explain to them that in order to replicate the baker's hands, the equipment had to be very,
very gentle. We couldn't divide with pistons anymore
because they punished the dough. We worked together
to adapt the equipment during every step of their process to replicate every step of our process - and not
the other way around when people bought traditional
dividers and moulders and found they needed conditioners to divide the dough, to produce at much faster
rates and to retain hydration. This is what prompted the
change in artisan baking over the years.
In France today, every village has six bakers who can
still make the product by hand to meet consumer demand. That's not the case in other countries where they

don't have bakers making products by hand in every
town.

What is the greatest challenge facing artisan
bakers?
Truly, our biggest challenge is differentiating our products from everyone who uses the term "artisan" without
any real commitment to the process or the investment,
which dilutes the value for artisan breads in the short
term. But the market is maturing, and we see a differentiation occurring. Therefore, change is coming slowly.
It's definitely coming.

What is your point of differentiation?
It's that we stayed the course. We remained focused.
We didn't let our philosophy be swayed. If we did, we'd
be in a price war with commodity bread. This is not
our vision. It is not our passion for baking. We have
recently been to Europe to see new equipment and
how it has evolved. Our focus is to go to a larger scale
without compromising our integrity. I'm confident
that we will be able to offer our customers the highest
level of quality product and innovation without the
highest price.

Describe your passion for the industry.
The baking industry grows on you, and what pushed me
to further horizons is the need to revive being a baker
as a profession. It is a noble profession. Passion is something either you have or you don't.

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Baking & Snack - September 2014

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