Brice-Audren Riché began his role as Lesaffre’s CEO on January 1, 2022. He shared with us his perspective
on managing a company the stature of Lesaffre, his thoughts on current disruptions, and the fundamentals of innovation and conducting business going forward.
Catalina Mihu: Congratulations on the new role! What are your thoughts on taking the lead of one of the key global companies in the baking industry, in the current environment?
Brice-Audren Riché: It is with great enthusiasm, pleasure and pride that I have taken over the position of CEO at Lesaffre, succeeding Antoine Baule, whose dedication to the service of our group for nine years I would like to pay tribute to.
With the 11,000 employees of the group throughout the world, we will carry on developing solutions based on micro-
organisms such as yeast, yeast extracts, bacteria, phages, and more. Lesaffre’s various activities are at the heart of the challenges of today and tomorrow, stemming from how to nourish nine billion people by 2050, in a healthy way, by making the most of our planet’s resources. It is extremely stimulating to be able to accompany the growth of our group in a sustainable and responsible manner, both in Baking and Nutrition & Health.
Mihu: The CEO role came six months after being appointed Deputy Managing Director of Lesaffre. What has the transition entailed?
Riché: My role as Deputy Managing Director at Lesaffre was an opportunity to ensure a smooth transition from my duties at Biospringer to my current position. With the members of Comex and the support of all the group’s teams throughout the world, we continue to focus on our mission to pursue Lesaffre’s development in the fields of baking and nutrition and health.
Mihu: What values and key takeaways would define your tenure as Biospringer’s General Manager?
Riché: Our group, with its 170 years of history, is viscerally attached to the values of entrepreneurship and innovation that make up its DNA. Like all the entities of Lesaffre, Biospringer is marked by the group’s mission: working together to better nourish and protect the planet.
New perspectives
Mihu: What aspects will Lesaffre prioritize under your management?
Riché: In the coming decades, as the world’s population continues to grow, we will need to discover sustainable ways of providing healthy food for all, while also helping protect the environment. At Lesaffre, we believe in the limitless opportunities offered by biotechnology, such as the fermentation of microorganisms. Our ambition is to be a leading player in the global movement to harness the power of fermentation by developing our portfolio of microorganisms. Yeasts, yeast extracts, bacteria, phages are some of these microorganisms which can bring benefit by themselves or through the metabolites they generate.
11,000
employees work
at Lesaffre
Mihu: What changes brought on by pandemic measures will shape the workflow at Lesaffre going forward?
Riché: Our agile, highly international business organization model, which allows the vast majority of initiatives to be taken at the local level, has enabled us to get through the pandemic. Our top priorities during the crisis were twofold: to ensure the safety of our employees in the face of the pandemic, and to continue to fulfill our mission with our clients to help feed the population.
Mihu: And what changes should the entire supply chain make to adapt to disruptions such as this?
Riché: The global pandemic that we have been through has had a lasting and profound impact on working methods in all sectors. It has also provided an opportunity to challenge practices. This is the case for the supply chain, which we have adapted so that it can respond quickly and efficiently to our customers’ needs. This is another lesson learned in the crisis: we anticipate and understand potential challenges and react quickly to avoid stock shortages and delays, with our customer service specialists tracking our shipments through to final delivery. Finally, our industrial footprint – with plants close to our customers and market – is a great asset, not only to produce locally, which means reducing transportation and CO2 emissions, but also to be able to adapt quickly to supply chain disruptions.
Mihu: What is the impact you observe on global trends and in the fermentation industry, in particular?
Riché: We are collectively facing one big challenge: in 2050, we will be more than nine billion people on Earth. We will need to be fed and remain healthy while protecting the planet to pass it on to future generations. Lesaffre is determined to play a role in this challenge. Our ambition is to take advantage of the immense progress occurring in the science of fermentation and to contribute to its advancement. We are convinced fermentation is part of the solution to this challenge.
“In the next months, we plan to build two plants, on two different continents. In France, we will open a new campus, equipped with state-of-the-art R&D equipment.”
Brice-Audren Riché, CEO Lesaffre
The next step
Mihu: What possible market dynamics do you anticipate?
Riché: Today, the more we advance in our research, the better we understand the nature of fermentation, the intimate composition of microorganisms and the benefits they bring to humanity. In turn, we find better uses in taste and pleasure, especially for baking products, but also – generally speaking – for human, animal and plant nutrition and health. We can also contribute to the rise of industrial biotechnologies.
Mihu: What can you share about Lesaffre’s current and upcoming projects worldwide?
Riché: Our expertise in bread-making makes us a trusted partner for bakeries of all sizes. Baker’s yeast is a vital ingredient for bread-making as its fermentation is key to making the dough rise. Today, a traditional ingredient for leavening bread, sourdough, is enjoyed by consumers
looking for natural products and the richest possible flavors. We have solutions for our customers under the Livendo range, including starters, living sourdoughs, devitalized sourdough, and sourdough-based preparations, all designed to make it easier to bake sourdough bread. We already have several units in the different regions of the world dedicated to sourdough. We will keep on investing in this field and innovating as part of our baking ingredient portfolio.
We are also convinced that bread can play its part in daily nutrition and well-being. This is why we are committed to providing every baker with genuinely healthy ingredients. In this respect, we offer solutions to reduce the quantities of certain ingredients in finished products, such as salt, fat and sugar, or solutions to add ingredients, conversely, including proteins, vitamins or minerals.
The crossover of our historic expertise in bread-making and the state-of-the-art expertise in our nutrition and health business units puts Lesaffre in a unique position to meet the challenges of baking in the 21st century. By working closely with bakers and harnessing our R&D facilities, we can deliver the latest innovations in bread-making.
Mihu: What priorities are the basis for projects at Lesaffre?
Riché: Our group has never stopped growing since its creation in 1853. In view of the needs of the population, this trend must accelerate. This is the reason why we plan to continue to innovate and expand, with many projects worldwide. Our business is organized around four business clusters and 10 business units. Serving the markets for baking, food taste and pleasure, healthcare and industrial biotechnology, our teams are continuously looking to extend our fermentation knowledge.
In the next months, we plan to build two plants, on two different continents. In France, we will open a new campus, equipped with state-of-the-art R&D equipment. This unique place will gather 700 of our colleagues and will help to promote synergies on our projects. It will constitute a unique ecosystem, a place of connection, emulation and collective intelligence around major themes which are important for us for the future.
Thanks to the commitment and passion of our teams worldwide, we have created a unique innovation platform to address needs as varied as the diversity of breads from around the world, human immunity, antibiotic reduction in animal feed, pesticide replacement in crop protection and many other solutions to better nourish and protect the planet.
Microorganisms such as yeast, yeast extracts, bacteria, and phages are the basis of new product development at Lesaffre
Mihu: Lesaffre has been driven for almost 170 years by its ambition to create innovative and environmentally friendly solutions. What will further innovation focus on?
Riché: At Lesaffre, we know that living microorganisms have a wealth of untapped potential. We are working to unleash their possibilities with our spirit of innovation. As a global group, we are driving innovation in every area of expertise and every single one of our activities.
Our teams are involved in the innovation process, from the marketing teams to the industrial management team and, of course, our 600 R&D experts around the world, who actively collaborate with some 60 universities and research centers throughout the world. This proactive approach is based on the needs of the field, as well as on the continuous search for product improvement and ease of use by the end-user. We are devoting our energy and enthusiasm to building this growth platform in partnership with the best teams in the world. The accelerated progress in the science of fermentation is an immense resource, providing solutions to nourishing the planet responsibly in the long run.
Mihu: How do you see R&D work at Lesaffre, given the global reach and opportunity for local inspiration?
Riché: As a science and technology company, we are continually looking for new opportunities for innovation that will help our customers. Innovation is deeply ingrained in our DNA, along with our belief in placing the user experience at the heart of everything we do. We see innovation as a process that needs space to develop and respond to ever-
changing needs. Amid growing interest in plant-based diets, Proteissimo 101, a protein derived from yeast, is just one example of that spirit of innovation. It underlines our belief that entrepreneurship, trust and passion drive innovation, and we encourage it across our business.
We are proud to be working closely with our clients, partners and other stakeholders. Together, we are developing innovative new solutions to meet their ever-changing needs, and those of their customers. To do this, we combine the expertise of our R&D and application centers with the feedback from customers, so that we can co-create entirely new offerings and enhancements to our existing ones. We believe that our role is to help our customers anticipate future challenges, to help them adapt and encourage them to innovate. With 62 locations around the world, our application centers for different markets are staffed with experienced, multicultural technicians. Our network of 50 Baking Centers™ plays the leading role in responding to changes in tastes, products, techniques and processes, and finding tailored solutions for industrial and artisan bakers.
600
R&D experts work at Lesaffre worldwide
A sustainable industry is a must
Mihu: And what sustainability efforts are planned at Lesaffre? What are possible paths for bakeries to continuously become more sustainable in the baking industry?
Riché: I am convinced that Lesaffre’s growth can only be sustainable and responsible. We are committed to controlling our carbon footprint and our energy consumption. Our 11,000 employees are driven every day by a common mission: working together to better nourish and protect the planet. To this end, we use our unique fermentation skills and our knowledge of micro-organisms to improve food, human and animal health and protect the environment.
Wherever our customers and partners are located, we are never far away. Lesaffre’s truly global network of production sites, application centers, R&D laboratories and commercial offices means that we are close to our clients, and the markets they serve. By leveraging our scale, we can provide tailored solutions to specific local needs around the world.
Making the best use of resources is equally important for bread-making, as bakers must be able to market their products at the right price. We are continuously looking at ways to render bread-making more efficient, by reducing or eliminating waste and optimizing the time required for baking. In today’s fast-moving world, bakers and their customers are both looking for ways to make their lives a little easier. We are dedicated to helping them. Along with our ingredients and digital tools, we also support bakeries of all sizes with our Baking Center™ network. Deployed on every continent, this international network makes our expertise available to customers in the form of technical assistance, product and process development and training.
For Lesaffre, the enjoyment of bread is one of life’s simple pleasures. Our role is to help bakeries of all sizes to recreate that pleasure every day for their customers, providing all the necessary yeasts and ingredients to suit local tastes and cultural preferences. At the same time, bread offers everyone a way to take care of themselves. It provides nutrition in the form of proteins, vitamins and minerals, along with well-being. We are committed to providing healthy ingredients that can be adapted to lifestyle needs or dietary requirements. To guarantee their quality and safety, we take great care with our raw materials, processes and traceability. In all of these activities, we are also working to become ever more sustainable.
