Thomas Lesaffre, Baking with Lesaffre Marketing Director and Member of Lesaffre Executive Committee, Lesaffre
Considering the market volatility, supply chain disruptions, energy costs, and workforce scarcity, what does this past year look like for your company when you draw the line?
Like in many other businesses, 2022 was a challenging year for the baking industry. The market situation is very different from one country to another. For Baking with Lesaffre, our priority remained to support our customers throughout the year in their different challenges. For example, this past year, the Baking Center™ network has diversified and adapted to the changing constraints of customers in particular through training courses on the management of water and energy consumption in the bread-making process, and other training courses that explore new baking processes, the reduction or elimination of waste and the optimization of the baker’s time and resources.
What are your expectations for next year, keeping in mind the legacy of 2022, but also the current challenges?
The situation remains very tense today regarding energy consumption. We need to find collective solutions, between manufacturers, customers and public authorities, that are sustainable and solid. As a key player on the baking market, Baking with Lesaffre will continue to support its customers, to act for the industry and to defend this noble product which is bread.
How do you estimate the market will evolve and what is your priority list for 2023?
I’m full of hope that the market will bounce back, for different reasons. First of all, because in a crisis, consumers go back to basics, their favorite foods. And what is bread if it it’s not a food at the base of the pyramid in every European diet? And also because bakers are prepared to meet the wide variety of end-consumer needs. At Baking with Lesaffre, we’ve been working hard to help them with a range of products and services aligned with all the market trends, even though there are many of them!
Where did the growth opportunities come from and what is the most important lesson you have learned in recent times?
No one could have anticipated the last 3 years. Strange it may sound, the successive crises (COVID and energy crisis) were real accelerators to develop new service initiatives going further than the product. We also had to find new ways to work, to be more agile, to collaborate differently with our customers and that really reinforced our customer intimacy.
What do you consider to be the most valuable asset you have in 2023 as a company?
Lesaffre is a recognized player in the field of fermentation and micro-organisms, with 170 years of history. More than assets, it is the group’s strong values and the commitment of the employees within Baking with Lesaffre that I will mention. Relying on the passion of our teams, a recognized expertise, state-of-the-art equipment, a rich geographical footprint and a partnership approach with our customers, 2023 is full of challenges that we are ready to meet.
As part of your growth strategy, how do you prioritize your investments versus your R&D efforts?
In fact, these two actions are fully complementary, both at the group level and within Baking with Lesaffre. Lesaffre continues to strengthen its geographical footprint around the world, and we recently opened our 50th Baking Center™ in Jordan. This is one of the hallmarks of the group’s identity: to be as close as possible to our customers in order to best meet their needs and local consumption requirements. To support this development, R&D is more than ever central. Our new Lesaffre Campus and its 60% of the surface dedicated to research laboratories and industrial pilots, inaugurated at the end of 2022, illustrates our ambition to accelerate innovation.
What was unexpected in 2022 and how did it impact your business?
Like all companies in the sector, we were exposed to external events that required us to adapt, adjust and react. This is what happened in 2022. We adapted our offer, we adjusted our priorities and we reacted as fast as we could in order to respond to our customers’ needs.
Which are the most important drivers of change for your business in 2023? How do you plan to prepare for them?
One of the main drivers of the change that the last few years have revealed is our ability to no longer think our offer only as a provider of products, but also of rich and adapted solutions for our customers who are now exposed to specific challenges regarding energy consumption, CSR considerations, or consumers specific nutritional intake requirements.
What would you like to see happening in 2023 for your stakeholders and business environment (in terms of policy, regulations, and market) in order for your business to thrive more?
Final consumers will play a major role in 2023 and I would like to see them always keeping their loyalty and even their “love” for bread. Considering the product offer, it might be difficult for bakers to satisfy consumers’ expectations in this context where balancing on the energy access and cost will remain critical this year. But I am convinced that going back from basics to higher-value baking products will be a business accelerator for the global baking industry.