Pierrelebaker Consulting

Bread, Viennoiserie, & Bakery Consulting

PIERRELEBAKER- Consulting is a French artisanal bread, viennoiserie, & bakery consulting firm that brings a decade of expertise and innovation to the Sourdough based - artisanal baking industry.

Since the pandemic, staff / food shortage and inflation put organizations under high stress and business models under pressure, while maintaining the quality of baked good, the same.

Opening and or running a retail bakery business has never been so challenging since then, but also rewarding, by staying opened and keep on serving your community daily.

In this context, maintaining and delivering high quality baked good, at a fair price to your customers, requires to closely monitor food cost, operating costs and strive to work as efficiently as possible. This requires:

- to find the right market / product fit,

- to setup the right processes and operations (Not only baking but also Sales and marketing strategies (CRM) and services),

- to invest / install reliable equipment / systems to support the operations,

- to define, test and execute the recipes right according to the production schedule,

- to offer the right training to your team.

Years of experiments, trials and errors are usually necessary to implement and optimize such operations.

 In 2012, I learnt how to become a baker at Ferrandi – the school of culinary art of Paris. Then, I worked for greats Chef in Paris (Cyril Lignac, Hermes Agboton, Gontran Cherrier) but I really deepen my knowledge and skills in baking and entrepreneurship since I opened Bree’Osh in Santa Barbara in 2015. I have also a background in marketing, sales and CRM (Customer Relationship management) as a project manager and consultant in the bank, insurance, or energy industries. This include HSBC, Acxiom. I postgraduate in CRM from the international business school of Rennes (France) in 2004.

Check out our work BREEOSH.com or PIERRELEBAKER

Bree’Osh is a French artisan bakery for fine breads and pastries founded in Santa Barbara’ in 2015. The company owns several high end retail and wholesale bakeries downtown SB and in Montecito (CA).

Bree’osh is considered to be a pioneer in transforming the sourdough’s based bread and pastries’s culture in California.

They source the best heritage quality grain that suits for long fermentation and sourdough use which, not only provides ease of digestion but also enables the decrease of fat and sugar in its recipes.

My team and I have the ability to save you a lot of time, many hurdles and help you set up a bakery program of the highest quality or adjust the one you already have.

Contact us today and find out how we can help !

Consulting services include :

On-site Bakery Consulting

On site visit are usually to way to go in when it comes to set up a baking operations, trouble shooting a major / repetitive issue, scheduling a production, allocating resources/skills, or even learning / refining some sourdough baking technics (need to create, feed, reactivate a starter for bread and or viennoiserie etc). Whatever is your request in those fields I want you make sure you create the best quality baking program possible that suits your operations.

Remote consulting

Some operations do not require an “on site visit” such as purchasing, formula development, basic troubleshooting etc. If you feel that a challenge may be covered over the phone, email or video, shoot me an email.

Bakery opening (from design to opening)

Choosing the right space, designing the lay out, picking the right equipment is of the essential steps in creating a successful bakery. You need to make sure all is done right to make your operations as efficient as possible. Once you defined your strategy (retail, wholesale…) and your objectives (volume, quality, cost), the well-defined baking process will help you to choose your equipment with the right capacity, the right features, and the right dimensions for your space. I help you pick out, whatever you need, from the heavy equipment (ovens, mixer, retarder-proofer etc) to smaller ones.

 Production scheduling

Production of artisanal bakery goods is time sensitive due to the sourdough/yeast based proofing of doughs. The type and methods of fermentation (direct, bulk or shaped retarded…), the final weigh out, will impact the production schedule. Let me help you plan out your production schedule so that you can sleep knowing everything is going as planned.

As artisan baker are biggest challenge is to maintain consistency everyday – your country bread is light in color, the crumb is too dense or the taste is too acidic etc. Indeed, inconsistencies are a “business killer” that can result from many causes (ingredients, material, methodology, environment, employee). It can be tricky to source the origin of the non- quality, while focusing on the daily operations. However, with the appropriate methodology you can figure it out and act quickly. I am here to help you take more detachment and figure it out.

Staff training

Artisanal baking is all about insight and feeling (look, smell, taste, touch). Not only, you need to know, but you also need to “understand” and “feel” the dough to be in a position of delivering quality goods daily. I train with hands on experiences and providing tips and tricks to increase your staff’s level of confidence all along the process.

Whatever you need an initial training or an ongoing support for your employee, my team and I will help leave them with knowledge and skills knowing what to do in most common situation.

For more information, consulting rates, availability please contact me.