Puratos at Europain '08
At the last Europain in 2005, Puratos presented for the first time the Group’s 3 signature brands Puratos, Belcolade and PatisFrance. Since then, the Puratos group has evolved considerably.
A new strategy
Puratos is implementing a new strategy consisting, notably, of its vision: "We believe that people will attach more and more importance to the quality of their food in the future." When it comes to bread, cake and chocolate, quality has different meanings according to the country you are doing business with because, said Puratos CEO Daniel Malcorps, "bakery, patisserie and chocolate are a kind of translation in food of the local culture". He added that "health, pleasure, convenience and - of course - taste are the major trends we have to deal with throughout the world knowing that again, these have to be adapted to local cultures. Although Puratos is a global player, our biggest strength is that we really do act locally".
Puratos Global Markets Director Peter Deriemaeker underlines what is very specific about Puratos: "We don't just think about what our clients want. We consider what their customers, the end consumers, require. That is how we work together with our customers to help them increase their business. We spend a lot of time investigating what consumers want and how our innovation can further help our customers market their products to the consumer".
Unique tools to measure consumer's preferences
Puratos has developed a mobile variant of its sensory analysis labs, in the form of what it calls the "SensoBus". It is a double-decker bus, which has been transformed into a travelling laboratory with 6 tasting rooms equipped with computers. Daniel Malcorps commented : "Our Sensobus can collect data from up to 300 consumers a day. The results are fed into the computers and analysed to see what changes or improvements we should make to our innovations. The complementarities of these two sensory analysis tools are an extraordinary valuable source of knowledge for our customers".
Growing through innovation and helping its clients tap into evolving customer trends around the world are just 2 examples of the added value Puratos brings to the market.
The Puratos group today…
For many years, Puratos has been growing 3 times faster than the sector. And Daniel Malcorps still sees a lot of potential, mainly from the newly emerging countries, where Puratos invests a lot. The company's aim in 2008 is to break the 1 billion euro turnover barrier .
"To be able to grow through the 1 billion euro barrier, said Peter Deriemaeker, we need to work even closer with our customers as reliable partners in innovation. That's why we invest a lot in training our sales force and our technical teams. Everywhere in the world, our specialists place at the disposal of our customers everything they need to create new products and new concepts. Our experts provide them with scientific knowledge, technical assistance as well as information on market trends.
It' s a constant interaction between our customers and our specialists".
To be closer to its customers, Puratos gradually established 54 factories at the four corners of the world. "It is very important to be able to react very quickly, locally, to market trends adds Daniel Malcorps.
Recently, we opened subsidiaries in newly emerging countries, such as Belarus, Ukraine and Iran. The bread consumption in these countries is spectacular. On the contrary, in Thailand where we also opened a subsidiary, our challenge will be to create a demand for bakery products and meet consumer expectations on the patisserie and chocolate side. As far as India is concerned, we are creating a subsidiary in New Delhi. We have just exhibited at Aarhs, a bakery fair organized in New Delhi, where we obviously see the incredible market potential of India. We will start up local production to meet India's specific taste culture."
Puratos has recently invested in new plants in Denmark, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Turkey, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia. It also built new offices in Spain.
Focus on innovation and training
As reliable partners in innovation, Puratos gradually opened 36 Innovation Centers in the world. The pictures you see here show its latest and most advanced Innovation Center, located in Brussels.
The Innovation Center is also a training center for their employees, for whom numerous training schemes are being developed under the umbrella of The Puratos University. But the Innovation Center is not the only campus we have in Belgium… added Daniel Malcorps, our other campus is located at the German border, in St. Vith, and specialises in Bread Flavours. This center is open to our customers where they can enlarge their knowledge of bread flavour using our Sapore range of natural sourdoughs".
R&D is growing too
"To be able to help our customers increase their business, we are investing more and more in R&D. In 2002, we spent an average of 1.6 % of our turnover and in 2008 we will spend 2.4 %" said Daniel Malcorps. The results of these investments can be seen in the innovations and solutions Puratos presented at Europain.
Puratos, PatisFrance and Belcolade's novelties at Europain
"Since 2005, we have worked a lot on PatisFrance's new strategy, said PatisFrance-Puratos's Managing Director Enric Valls. We put in place a new corporate identity that has completely changed and energised our way of working in France. New teams are working closely with our customers and our researchers are creating innovations with the inimitable French flair of PatisFrance savoir-faire. Three of these innovations were strongly featured in our patisserie booth:
Patis'Macaron, a mix for 'French Macarons', a very fashionable specialty.
Patis'Cannelé, a specialty from the Bordeaux region consisting of a pancake batter flavoured with rum and vanilla and baked in a copper mould. The result is a mouthwatering crunchy exterior and a soft interior.
Delicecrem, our new first class mix for cold custard cream meeting French consumer expectations in terms of taste and texture".
Alongside their patisserie demonstration was Belcolade which this year celebrates its 20 years of passion for chocolate. Visitors were particularly taken with Belcolade's Origin chocolates made from beans sourced from various parts of the world: Uganda (new), Vanuato (new), Papua New Guinea, Ecuador, Venezuela, Dominican Republic (new) and Peru as well as Costa Rican references which are made using cocoa sourced from a Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.
The high cocoa content of the rich Noir Collection Uganda 80 provides a supreme cocoa taste with hints of earthiness, mushrooms and a subtle smoky flavour. Exports of Ugandan cocoa beans have risen sharply over recent years as consumers have discovered the exciting taste of Africa.
Lait Collection Vanuatu 44 is rich in character and delivers a strong but delightful cocoa flavour, with a hint of coffee and spice. Vanuatu is a nation of 83 islands in the South Pacific; with over 100 distinct local cultures and languages, it is one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world.
The Blanc Collection Dominican Republic 31 offers a lighter butter and milk flavour, with a hint of flowers and dried fruit. The Dominican Republic is the largest producer of cocoa beans in the Caribbean and this origin chocolate really is an outstanding addition to the Collection range.
Belcolade also presented its range of no-added-sugar chocolates which were appreciated for their rich taste.
"On the bakery side, we launched Puravita Wholegrain, a new bread mix from our Great Taste & Wellness range said Enric Valls. This bread is naturally healthy and contains 40% wholegrain cereal goodness: rich in fibres (6.5 g per 100 g), rich in vitamins of group B, rich in vitamin E and a natural source of magnesium and iron". Also part of our Great Taste & Wellness range, Soft'r Gold, which is an extraordinary improver in paste form. It enables the baker to drastically reduce the fat amount in sweet goods such as brioche while it increases softness and freshness.
For the French market, PatisFrance-Puratos launched an interesting concept called "Pain du Partage" (bread to share) based on their unique and very successful O-tentic bread product.
And last but not least, Tegral Multi-Viennoiserie, a new mix allowing professionals to make a wide range of sweet morning goods, the French way.
Industry
Puratos dedicated a part of its booth to its industrial customers where they presented five types of solutions:
Soft'r solutions for soft bread and rolls, which can help bakers to improve the texture of their bread and rolls in various ways or work on specific topics such as resiliency, freshness, moistness…
Freshness solutions for cakes, with a range of Acti-Fresh conditioners improving texture, cohesiveness, humidity and freshness;
Sapore Bread flavour solutions, because everything starts with consumer preferences. Puratos presented a complete range of sourdoughs of different origins ;
'Great Taste & Wellness' solutions, showing that Puratos researchers have the ability to answer these health trends and the capabilities to transform them into tailor-made, winning concepts;
Solutions for filled products, demonstrating that the interactions betweeen base and filling can be perfectly mastered and that Puratos has solutions for each type of application.
'Great Taste & Wellness' event
In addition to the presentation in the industrial area of the booth, Puratos also organized a conference on nutrition.
In a one hour lecture, three specialists analyzed the most recent trends in 'naturally healthy food' and offered new perspectives on innovation in bakery, patisserie and chocolate making. A buffet with the latest innovations from the Puratos 'Great taste & Wellness' range was served after the session.
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High-Resolution pictures for download
O-tentic baguettes (10848 kB)
O-tentic Pain du Partage (13297,9 kB)
O-tentic bread (Pan Pugliese) (8993 kB)
Puravita Whole Grain (3824,1 kB)
Soft'r products (lean) (12052,8 kB)
Soft'r products (rich) (12301,9 kB)
Viennoiserie (10152,7 kB)
PatisFrance Macarons (542,8 kB)
PatisFrance Cannelé (1) (924,3 kB)
PatisFrance Cannelé (2) (1143,8 kB)
Belcolade chocolate (2860,3 kB)
Belcolade Origin (15806,8 kB)
Belcolade Origin map (287 kB)
Praliné (7876,7 kB)
Innovation Center (635,7 kB)
Sensobus (4779,4 kB)