An interview with Master Boulanger Philippe Soulard by Kathryn Gordon
Name of Business: La
Maison du Pain
Kathryn: So Philippe, I’ve been coming here to
visit with you at la Maison du Pain for the annual ICE culinary course to learn
about artisan, levain leavened breads since 2006. Now I hear that you have
opened 2 additional locations of la Maison du Pain?
Original location of
La Maison du Pain in Angers
Philippe: Our city, Angers, underwent an
extensive 3-year construction project for a tramway. After the first few years, the construction
really impacted our business. Nobody
could really drive through the city so demand for our product was limited to
neighborhood walk-in customers, so we were forced to expand to other
locations.
Kathryn: Do you offer the same products in the
new locations as you do in the original location, or does it vary by
neighborhood?
Philippe: We sell the exact same products at each
location. We make 65 different bread products
from 29 different doughs! The second location is a second production
bakery that I took over – and the third location is retail only. Honestly, the third location is in a better
neighborhood (people with more income) than the second location, and the demand
is steadier there across the product lines.
Kathryn: If you took over a production bakery, how did
that go, if you changed a pre-existing product line over to your products and
renamed everything to the name of your business, “la Maison du Pain?”
Philippe: The transition was a bit rough at
first. For example, there was a type of
bread people wanted, but I didn’t want to make it so I didn’t bake it. We lost some people at first but since then,
demand has stabilized. We’ve been open
in that second bakery location about 6 months.
The third location has only been open a few months.
Wife Catherine, who
manages the retail operation
Kathryn: I know you use a lot of organic (biologique)
flours – but you’ve also said your customer base is not affluent enough to solely
demand organic products because of the higher retail price. What are your food costs?
Note: the stone-ground, water-driven mill that
produced Philippe’s organic flours is Moulin de Sarre, www.moulin-de-sarre.fr and is very
interesting to visit if you are in the Loire Valley.
Philippe: My food costs are about 25%. I don’t look at it on a product-by-product
basis, but overall that’s what it is.
Kathryn: You and your wife Catherine live here with
your family above the original location, and she manages the retail shop. And that has allowed you to tell if your
staff are starting work on time at 4 am!
How on earth are you managing the other full scale production bakery you
are now operating?
Couche, new, 10 years
old and 50 years old
Philippe: I only need 4 hours of sleep a
night. It was difficult at first,
because I needed to find very good people, including a very friendly retail
staff. In France, firing employees is
difficult so you have to be very careful making sure you are selecting the
right employee… For the production
staff, I moved over one of my sous chefs as the manager of the second
production bakery. I kept the bakers who
had been employed by the bakery I acquired and brought each of them to work
here with my staff to learn my product.
Gradually everyone was trained.
Philippe in the store
with some of his breads
Kathryn: Your specialty is levain leavened
breads – you seem to try to only use commercial yeast minimally, like for the
rich yeast products (brioche, croissants) and for one of your 10 different baguettes.
(Philippe produces one
cheaper, machine driven, yeast risen baguette for the older generation who
lived through WW II and don’t care for the more chic/nutritious/high end breads
with whole wheat, rye and grains. That
customer base likes the commercial white flour).
Kathryn: Are the breads truly the same in each
location, because I’ve tried making “your” breads in NYC and they work. They’re great breads, but they’re not exactly
what you make here in Angers. And your 3
locations of la Maison du Pain are all within the Angers city-limits (or about
5 miles apart).
Philippe: It’s true. I try to have the same product line at all 3
locations but at the second bakery location, even using the same brands of
flour, and having trained the staff myself, – some of the breads come out a
little different.
A crusty wheat levain
loaf
Kathryn: And within the
same city, the available city, water in the bread doughs is presumably the
same! For instance, if I try to make
your formula using water from NYC (which has chlorine, fluoride and who knows
what else), I should expect a different result!
Of course – you have a bit more
of the “wild yeasts” available here in a location that has been a boulangerie
for decades, than some people have at their US bakeries (or their homes).
Kathryn: How much commercial yeast to you use in your
dough formulas?
Philippe: There’s nothing wrong with using a bit of
commercial yeast and I use the fresh variety in some of my doughs.
If you strictly use levains for all your doughs, the levains
and the doughs take up more space in your bakery. You need space for longer fermentation of the
levain and space for longer fermentation of the pates (doughs). And space equals money.
Kathryn: How did you finance your expansion?
Philippe: In France, you can get a bank loan for 7
years if you file an application that includes your resume.
After 7 years of operating a business, I would have to pay a
higher tax to the government than for the first 7 years.
It is more economically viable in France to re-mortgage and
expand a business, or at least try to expand until you retire and sell your
business (where you would then pay less taxes because you are in retirement).
I was able to get the bank loan for the expansion because we
were successful with the first location.
Boulanger Philippe
showing how his ovens work in a class; we visit Philippe for an artisan bread
lesson in the annual ICE Cuisine Course in France
(www.moulinbregeoncuisinecourses.com)
Kathryn: And you have quite a resume! You even come from a family of bakers.
Philippe: My father was a baker, and my brothers are
bakers. I went to school for several
years for bread, and then I travelled around the country to boulangeries
working for a flour company. I had to
help work at different bakeries every day.
I really learned a lot about bread doughs, in different environments,
and what I wanted to produce for my own line of levain leavened bread.
Kathryn: With all this expansion, you need a
website! You have all this cute stuff
in the retail shop: aprons with your
logo, bread baskets with your logo, reuseable shopping bags…
Philippe: Yes, we know!
As we’ve been discussing for years.
It will be live this summer.
Kathryn: OK Philippe, thank you! And we’ll follow-up again with you in a few
months when the website is live.
Couche, used for
proofing shaped breads, 50 years old
Want to Learn More About Our Services? Our Primary Website is
No comments:
Post a Comment