Éric, Artisan-Baker

Éric is one of the bakers working at the Auchan Kirchberg store since its opening, 21 years ago.

As a fervent defender of traditional bread-making, he offers his customers really tasty bread everyday!

• Éric, tell us about your baker job!

  Bread requires time. My team starts working at midnight to knead the dough. I arrive at 5 o’clock to manage the production; I am the link between the night and day teams. There are 6 of us working at the bakery during the week and 9 on weekends. This teamwork allows us to bake 6,000 breads during the week, 11,000 on weekends. And because I strongly believe in traditions, a huge part of those breads are hand-made!

• Do you really handshape most of your breads? Does tradition remain important to you, even while working at a major retailer such as Auchan?

  Of course, and I am proud of it: it is the job I was trained for. Most of our customers are not interested anymore in perfectly sized and tasteless baguettes… So more than 70% of our production is traditional! Our Luxembourg customers want good bread and they are willing to pay a little more to have a high-quality baguette.

• Are your clients aware that your bread is made on-site, in the store?

  This bothers me a little: most of our clients do not know that our breads are made and baked on-site. It seems so important to produce bread in the store!

  My whole team and I really care about this small-business tradition. So many boundaries are crossed with industrial breads and baking facilities that I am happy to work in the best possible conditions.

  It should be said and repeated out loud: at Auchan Luxembourg, our bread is made by real bakers, with local ingredients and on-site!

• What are the best conditions to bake good bread?

  There is one thing to keep in mind: bread cannot be baked in 3 minutes! It takes time for bread to have a real taste! The dough is prepared 24 hours in advance. Then, we leave it in the cold room for at least 12 hours before baking it. Thanks to this long time span, your baguette will taste better and you will be able to keep it longer.

• Is good flour important for bread to have a real taste?

  Flour is fundamental in our recipes! We have been working with the last mill in Luxembourg for a year now. Almost all our breads are kneaded with their flour. We are very proud of it, because we have been the only supermarket to get, for the past 2 years, the “Luxembourg crown”, a label given to products that are fully made of Luxembourg ingredients!

  The quality of the flours is very important for me! For example, when we launched the baguette d’antan, a real traditional baguette, I chose the flour myself and based my choices on tradition, on the original recipe. We make it with flour from Strasbourg: the Mirabelle.

• By baking traditional bread, aren’t you taking the risk of making a product that is a little different everyday?

  Not producing the same bread everyday is also what makes our job interesting. Our customers do not always know it, but we do not bake bread the same way in summer and in winter. When it is raining, we need to bake our bread a little longer – and we bake it for a little shorter when it is hot outside. We need to feel the bread.

• Do you have to be sensitive to be a baker?

  Why are you smiling? You know, on Valentine’s Day, our baguettes are heart-shaped. It makes me happy to imagine one of our customers would give it to their better half!

  Bread is about sharing, but it also is about speaking truly from the heart…