Lesaffre has opened a new baking centre in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, which aims to aid the creation of products which meet local requirements.
The facility will be operated by the company’s Lesaffre Ivoire subsidiary, and is Lesaffre’s first baking centre in West Africa. Lesaffre Ivoire has been based in Abidjan since 2004 and distributes yeasts and bread improvers throughout the Ivory Coast. It is also the commercial and technical support base for much of Lesaffre’s West and Central African operations.
According to the company, the new baking centre will bring together a team of breadmaking specialists who will be able to help professionals in the development of new products or breadmaking processes, train them using on-site equipment or intervene directly in their customers’ workshops and production sites to provide technical support.
Romain Petit, managing director of Lesaffre Ivoire, said: “Our customers appreciate being able to challenge their bread-making process on state-of-the-art equipment and with the help of experts.
“It’s a collaborative, peer-to-peer process, and our entire team is mobilised to come up with new ideas. For some customers, it’s an opportunity to learn or relearn how to master the ingredients to diversify their offer or improve the quality of their products.”
David Jousselme, director of the Overseas unit of Lesaffre, added: We have always wanted to be as close as possible to our customers, and Africa is an important market for Lesaffre.
“We are proud to inaugurate this new baking centre, which will enable us to go further in our support in West Africa. Bread is not consumed in the same way in France, the Ivory Coast or Algeria. Local experts can respond to local requirements and share their knowledge with research and development here. This enables them to co-develop products that meet these requirements.”
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