Bridor is thriving by adapting European breads, croissants and pastries to North American tastes, as Pam Derringer learns from company marketing vice president Pierre Martella.
Louis Le Duff arrived in North America from France some 30 years ago with an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for food, looking for opportunity. He found it. More accurately, perhaps, he made it.
The newly arrived Le Duff discovered that the families in the Quebec university community where he resettled had an unquenchable appetite for European breads and pastries but liked them slightly different from those he knew. Croissants, for example, had to be sweeter and have a more curved shape than they have in France. And North American croissants are more likely to be consumed as part of sandwiches rather than enjoyed as pastry. Although Bridor makes a great sandwich croissant, it would certainly want to add excitement to the croissant experience, according to marketing vice president Pierre Martella. “Our goal is to help North Americans discover the pleasure of a cup of coffee and a hot croissant on its own,” he says.
Another regional difference: Bridor’s North American baguettes, though identical in appearance to European versions, are softer without being spongy, he says. In both cases, Bridor adapted the original recipes to local tastes, and that has been the key to its success.
Today, privately owned Bridor has more than $100 million in annual sales in Canada and the US, four North American plants with a combined workforce of 350, plus the US-based La Madeleine country café chain and the Brioche Dorée restaurant chain for a total of about 3,000 employees. The forecast: strong growth ahead, especially in the US. “It’s all about innovation and quality,” Martella says.
At the heart of Bridor’s steady growth is Le Duff, who still sees business opportunities all around him and remains president and actively involved in Bridor operations today. Le Duff has never been afraid to invest whatever is needed to make sure a new venture gets off to the right start. And he never compromises on quality.
The history began in 1980 with a Montreal bakery, which grew so fast that Le Duff opened the first of four bread and Viennese pastry plants four years later. With a growing restaurant business and more retail clients, Bridor added a second Canadian plant in 1995. A third bread plant, creating a beachhead in the US market, was opened in Vineland, New Jersey, in 2002. Au Pain Doré, a 50-year-old Montreal plant that makes artisan baguettes and specialty breads, was added earlier this year.
Now Bridor breads and pastries are served in high-end restaurants in Canada and the eastern US and sold in supermarket bakeries, where the “par-baked” breads can be removed from the freezer, ready to sell after only five minutes in the oven. BRIDOR set the industry standard with the installation and operation of the first production line for par-baked, frozen breads, as well as for frozen and proof-&-bake Viennese pastry in North America.Par-baking simplifies and shortens the remaining work for retailers and allows them to order in bulk but bake loaves only as needed. Bridor and Au Pain Doré also have begun offering frozen par-baked breads directly to consumers, but more work remains to develop consumer packaging, Martella adds.
While many companies describe themselves as innovators and their products as high quality, Bridor means what it says. Bridor is continuously developing new bread and pastry products in response to changing tastes, including its new Advantage bread, which is white in color due to a specific milling process and healthier because it’s made with whole wheat, Martella says. Made with ConAgra Ultragrain flour, Bridor will roll out four Advantage bread products soon to restaurants and retailers.
In addition, Bridor has broadened its ethnic flavors from just French to European, including Viennese pastries and, coming this fall, Pugliese Italian loaves. The latter were created by a long-time Italo-French baker on Bridor’s in-house staff. “Offered in various shapes, Pugliese bread is made with olive oil and, while crusty, melts in your mouth,” says Martella. “We distributed small samples to our sales teams and they all want it NOW.”
Other segments such as Portuguese and Hispanic breads are under process of development to better fill the needs of the eastern US market. In addition, new equipment has just been added to the Vineland plant to enable it to make the popular ciabatta Italian loaves and other artisan breads. But it’s not just the innovative methods and variety that set Bridor apart. It’s also the quality of the staff, first and foremost, as well as the ingredients.
Right from the start, Bridor has enjoyed closer ties with established European bread bakers than other North American competitors because Le Duff himself is a French native, Martella says. By remaining in constant contact with its European counterparts, Bridor is able to retain its authenticity and seek help when problems arise. In addition, when European bakers introduce new products, Bridor is the first on the other side of the Atlantic to know about it, he adds.
Another key Bridor differentiator is its own in-house staff of seven bakers, about two per plant, and a chef. They not only preserve Bridor’s distinct French ethnicity but also spur the innovation of new products and help provide assistance to stores and restaurants, Martella says. “The chef and bakers can explain our product, experts to experts, and also provide important customer feedback to us.”
Chefs and bakers in Bridor’s research and development labs are encouraged to “play with dough” and come up with new ideas, the best of which, when ready, are transferred to production. “Bread products are very sensitive to environmental conditions, and only bakers know how to knead and shape the dough until it is perfectly adapted. You have to work with the bread by hand, allowing for different temperatures and humidity levels, and let the bread rest,” Martella says. “Only a real baker can do that.”
Finally, a word about ingredients. If you think Bridor makes pastries with just any flour and water or butter, you’re mistaken. For starters, the company doesn’t use pre-mix flour (like Bisquick, for example). Although pre-mix is simpler and faster, the end product loses its individual identity, Martella explains.
In addition, flour is a natural product, with harvests of varying quality, and Bridor is very cautious about what it buys. Bridor insists on specific protein content and other specifications and therefore buys flour from different regions in order to obtain the same quality year-round.
Butter, too, varies considerably in quality, so Bridor only buys from specific producers and regions and always uses fresh butter—never frozen—even though the latter can be cheaper, Martella says.
With sales growing faster in the US, where the Vineland plant has been in operation only eight years, Bridor has set ambitious growth goals. “Our goal is to double sales in the next five years,” says Martella. www.bridor.com
