Rising*to the occasion*

The heiress to the Poilne bread empire is 19 and ready to run the
business

B Y J O J O H N S O N
The Financial Times


****Apollonia Poilne is different from other chief executives in one
very obvious way. She is still in her teens. A skinny Parisian
schoolgirl, she was only 18 when her father, Lionel Poilne, the
cherished muse of French breadmaking, died in 2002 in a helicopter
crash and left her in sole control of the fabled Poilne bread empire.
The young Poilne, then about to study economics at Harvard, was with
her younger sister Athena at home in Paris when they heard of their
parents¹ death. Their flamboyant father, 57, had been at the controls
of his eightseater Agusta when it crashed just a few hundred yards
short of the family¹s private island off the coast of Brittany. Their
mother¹s body was never found.
Yet even as the search continued, business resumed at 8 Rue du Cherche
Midi, the shop above the family bakery in the most fashionable of
Saint-German des Prés streets. ³The day after the accident, the shop
was open at the same time,² says Apollonia, when we meet for breakfast.
³It was just that the person in charge had a different first name and a
different gender.²
The Poilnes have been baking in the Rue du Cherche Midi since 1932.
The secret to their success has been to stick to traditional
bread-making methods at a time when the vast majority of Frenchbakers
followed the postwar fashion for baguettes and other light, white
loaves. The Poilne flagship round sourdough loaf weighs a full 1.9 kg
and costs US$8.80.
³I had to force him to involve me in the business when I was a kid
because he had been forced into baking at the age of 14 by his father
and he wanted me to be free to choose what to do,² she says, as we
drink coffee and make a small dent in a heap of divine patisseries. ³I
had to say, ŒDad, I really want to become a baker.¹ ²
When Lionel Poilne died, France lost one of its culinary greats. Many
feared the bakery would not survive the loss. The country went into the
same heartfelt mourning it would experience four months later, after
Bernard Loiseau, France¹s best known three-star chef, committed
suicide, leaving his wife, Do- minique, in sole charge of his
gastronomic empire.
Poilne, France¹s first superstar baker, could not have been more
different from the anonymous boulangers who labour through the night in
isolation from the rest of the world. Described as a poète-boulanger,
he epitomized France¹s struggle against homogenization and
agribusiness.
The French now eat five times less bread than at the turn of the 20th
century (average consumption has fallen from 328 kg per person per year
in 1900 to less than 60 kg today). But breadmaking still has a
political and social dimension that goes far beyond its role as the
natural complement to a cuisine rich in ptés, sauces and cheeses.
Apollonia¹s father was also a gifted salesman, who turned the bakery
founded by her grandfather into a global brand and bequeathed her
US$19-million business in rude health. She is proud, she says, of the
signs that say Ici, pain Poilne in bistros across France. In many
fromageries, Poilne is the only bread offered as a worthy
accompaniment to the country¹s famously numerous cheeses.
While Poilne¹s ovens also produce raisin and walnut bread, as well as
pain de mie and croissants, the chewy round sourdough loaf accounts for
80% of sales. Other bakeries in Paris make similar golden crusted
discs, but it is the Poilnes who have spearheaded the fight against
the baguette ‹ an import from Austria.
Lionel Poilne was cautious in his retail expansion, adding just two
bakeries, one in central Paris and the other in Elizabeth Street in
London, in 30 years. ³Bearing in mind that London burnt down because of
a fire in a bakery, we were delighted,² Apollonia remembers. The idea
of setting up in Tokyo was rejected when the city refused permission
for a wood-fired oven.
But he was quick to see an opening in the wholesale market. By
developing a network of distributors in France and abroad, he opened up
a huge market for his high-quality bread that would have normally been
limited to the square mile around the bakery. Poilne bread, wrapped in
plastic, is now widely available in French supermarkets.
He responded to the strong wholesale demand with the creation at
Bievres, outside Paris, of a Camembert-shaped hub of 24 traditional
ovens. Poilne said this giant bakery, which combined the
industrial-scale daily production of 7,000 sourdough loaves with the
traditional methods used in the Cherche du Midi bakery, typified his
philosophy of ³retro-innovation.²
For an eminently perishable product, Poilne bread is exceptional in
its global reach. Every day, golden-crusted loaves are flown by Federal
Express to Japan, Saudi Arabia or the United States, where, in New York
alone, 16,000 loaves are consumed each year. Made with stone-ground
wheat flour, sea salt from Britanny and leaven, it can last a week,
even if many customers prefer to buy half or quarter loaves.
Apollonia had just graduated from high school in Paris and was
preparing to move to the United States to take up the Harvard offer
when the family business lost its charismatic figurehead. She says she
had no hesitation about asking the university to defer her place.
³Harvard is a dream school and I was lucky I got in,² she says
diplomatically. ³But I am undecided about my studies and I don¹t want
to be forced to commit now.²
For someone with so little direct business experience, she is uncannily
good at giving bland corporate-speak answers in her flawless English.
More importantly, however, she projects a natural authority and a sense
that Poilne is hers to run as she thinks best. ³People were used to
seeing me around the place, and my father had really educated me in
decision-making.²
Like any savvy chief executive, she has effusive praise for her
colleagues, but makes it clear that the buck stops with her. ³My father
did an excellent job of building an amazing team here, but of course
there are some decisions that are difficult and they¹re my decisions,
not theirs,² she says.
Her younger sister, now 16, might one day help share the job of running
the family firm, but it is not yet clear whether she too has flour in
her veins. ³She¹s uncertain about what she wants to do. She¹s welcome
to work with me here if she wants and it¹s fine with me if she
doesn¹t.²
Apollonia Poilne has been thrust into a position of responsibility at
a very tender age, but denies that she risks losing touch with her
peers. ³As soon as I am out of work, I am still a 19-yearold kid having
movie nights. There is a balance in my life even if I get up at five
every day.²

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"Darrell Greenwood" > wrote in message
lid...
>
> Rising to the occasion
>
> The heiress to the Poilne bread empire is 19 and ready to run the
> business
>
> B Y J O J O H N S O N
> The Financial Times
>

Thanks Darrell.

-Mike