Lesaffre inaugurates first Baking Center in Ivory Coast

This new Baking Center™, the first of its kind in West Africa, aims to support customers in this region in the development of their expertise and new innovative bread-making solutions.

On Tuesday, 28th of January 2020, Lesaffre inaugurated the Baking Center™ of its subsidiary Lesaffre Ivoire (Lesaffre.ci) in Abidjan in the presence of Mr. David Jousselme, Director of the Lesaffre Overseas region and Mr. Gilles Huberson Ambassador of France in Ivory Coast. This new Baking Center™, the first of its kind in West Africa, aims to support customers in this region in the development of their expertise and new innovative bread-making solutions.

A technological innovation centre at the service of bread making activity

In order to be ever closer to its customers and to meet growing demand in West Africa, Lesaffre is opening its Baking Center™ in Abidjan. Lesaffre Ivoire thus completes its expertise and facilities in order to support a diversified clientele: craft bakers, industrialists, distributors, wholesalers, hotels, and restaurants.

The new Baking Center™, built on a surface area of more than 120 m², will bring together a team of breadmaking specialists who will be able to help professionals in the development of new products or breadmaking processes, train them using on-site equipment or intervene directly in their customers' workshops and production sites to provide technical support.

Romain Petit, Managing Director of Lesaffre Ivoire adds: "Our customers appreciate being able to challenge their bread-making process on state-of-the-art equipment and with the help of experts. It's a collaborative, peer-to-peer process, and our entire team is mobilized to come up with new ideas. For some customers, it's an opportunity to learn or relearn how to master the ingredients to diversify their offer or improve the quality of their products. 

A locally anchored project

Lesaffre Ivoire's experts and technicians are perfectly familiar with the specificities of West Africa and provide concrete solutions for using yeast, sourdough or bread improvers in local recipes such as Ghanaian bread, traditional baguette, farmhouse bread or compound bread (wheat-manioc).

"We have always wanted to be as close as possible to our customers, and Africa is an important market for Lesaffre. We are proud to inaugurate this new Baking Center™ which will enable us to go further in our support in West Africa. Bread is not consumed in the same way in France, the Ivory Coast or Algeria. Local experts can respond to local requirements and share their knowledge with research and development here. This enables them to co-develop products that meet these requirements. It's a virtuous circle that starts in Baking Center™ where professionals speak the same language." adds David Jousselme, Director of the Overseas region of Lesaffre.

Baking Center™, whose concept was created in 1974 by Lesaffre, is a real centre of expertise, technology and innovation in bread making for the bakery trade. The international network of Baking Center™ currently comprises 47 centers spread over the 5 continents.

Lesaffre, a global key player in the Yeast and Fermentation Field

As a global key player in the field of yeast and fermentation, Lesaffre designs manufactures and markets innovative solutions for Baking, Food taste & pleasure, Health care, and Biotechnology.

The family group born in northern France in 1853, now a multilocal and a multicultural company, Lesaffre is committed to working with confidence to better nourish and protect the planet.

In close collaboration with its clients and partners, Lesaffre employs 10,500 people, in 66 production sites, in 80 subsidiaries based in more than 50 countries. Lesaffre achieves a turnover of more than 2.2 billion euros.

(With Inputs from APO)