Two French bakers radically change their lives and recover a business in crisis

Image Source - Google | Image by-flickr

The Ritz Hotel in Dubai is one of the most luxurious in the world. The cheapest room does not go below 400 euros a night, while the royal suite, of more than 200 m², costs around 6,000. There they met two Frenchmen who worked there for a couple of years and who, after getting fed up with it, ended up buying an old bread oven in Fuliola, a town of just over a thousand inhabitants in the region of Urgell Now they live there and say they are happier than ever.



In Dubai, Rémi Martinazzo was the executive chef of the hotel's pastry section. His friend Pierre Houspie was the director of accommodation. They were high-responsibility management positions that forced them to take unpleasant decisions. "Once I had to fire more than forty workers in just two days", recalls Pierre. In the Emirates, the two companions had to face a life watered by money, luxury and, according to them, many situations in which human rights were violated. "Similar to what is being said now about the World Cup in Qatar", they agree.



Types of life they were leading, they made a radical turn by buying a bread oven more than 5,000 kilometers away. It is about Pa d'Abans, a business run by some residents of Fuliola who could not find relief in their retirement. The transfer announcement they published on the Repoblem.cat network definitely interested the two French hoteliers. As soon as they signed the transfer agreement, they closed the establishment for only a few days to make renovations and reopened guaranteeing the usual bread service not only to the residents of the village, but also to the surrounding municipalities. They distribute it through Cervera, Tàrrega, Balaguer, Bellpuig, Ivars and Barbens, and have customers who come from Lleida, Igualada and even Barcelona.


Both Remi and Pierre were raised in an eminently rural environment and are sensitive to its reality. "We were born in towns where there are more cows than inhabitants", they joke. Rémi is from Ville Cerf, a village of 700 inhabitants, 300 kilometers south of Paris; Pierre is the son of farmers and grandson of bakers from the Lille area, near the border with Belgium. After finishing their hospitality studies, both went out to see the world. Barcelona, ​​England, Indonesia and Bahrain were some of their destinations before meeting at the Ritz Hotel in Dubai. 


Their extensive professional career has helped them to now apply the principles of luxury hospitality to a small town in Ponent. They believe that a housewife from Fuliola, a farmer from Boldú or a driver from Tarròs are as honorable clients as the Arab with the most petrodollars in the Persian Gulf. "With our experience around the world we have learned to give everyone a service full of small details, exquisite treatment and personalized attention - says Pierre-. We want everything to be perfect."


Against depopulation


The Repoblem.cat network, which was born from the publication of the book of the same name by Ton Lloret, a cultural manager from Argençola, is the great catalyst that allowed Dubai to connect with Fuliola. "We were only interested in an old rural workshop that was about to close", they warn. The final agreement between the old owners and the two Frenchmen was, therefore, one of the few testimonies of success in a Catalan geographical context that is losing inhabitants and services to forced marches. 



Especially the bread sector is experiencing one of the worst times. The rise in prices of flour, light and fuels, the proliferation of large surfaces with cheaper items and the lack of generational relief are punishing a craft that is leaving rural Catalonia (and also some cities) without this type of establishments. At the end of last October, the country's bakeries turned off their lights in the evening for fifteen minutes to protest the rise in energy prices and urge the central government to change the tariff system to put a stop to it.


In Lleida, the bakers' guild has more than a hundred members. Jesús Querol, one of the regional delegates of Ponent and owner of an establishment in Torregrossa (Pla d'Urgell), assures that the rural environment of the province is destined to have only one oven for each region. "It is a very tough sector - argues Querol -, which requires modernization and investment in machinery to survive and compete with the big industries". For this reason, he recognizes that many producers approaching retirement no longer consider new investments. "We are sentenced to death", regrets the trade union representative.


The French bakers of Fuliola recognize that people will not stop going to supermarkets to buy bread, where they will always find it cheaper, but remember that theirs is a different product. "You can leave our bread on the table at home for more than five days and you will still be able to eat it", assures Pierre. And the fact is that the first material they work with, in addition to being of quality and ecological, is also local. Fuliola sausages, Mollerussa milk, Agramunt flour and Vic chocolate are some examples. The oven will never sell strawberry cakes in the winter, or orange cakes in the summer. "We only work with seasonal food", they warn.



But they say their big secret is dedication. "We have a great passion for what we do, it makes us vibrate and, above all, allows us to go home proud every night", they summarize.


Twenty varieties of bread


They have two hired clerks, but since they opened the shop exactly a year ago, they have been working more hours than a clock. Pierre and Rémi currently share a house in Fuliola to reduce expenses. They get out of bed at two in the morning to turn on the workshop. In the morning they do home delivery and very often stay behind the counter until seven in the evening. "We dedicate the free time we have to rest", they say. They haven't even been able to travel to France yet to visit their families. 


Every morning, customers can see the two Frenchmen working behind a screen that allows a glimpse of a wood-fired oven four meters in diameter. Through a slow fermentation process and with sourdough, they make bread from wheat flour, but also from rye, buckwheat, wholemeal rice, spelt, kamut and, of course, baguettes. In total up to twenty different varieties of bread. And yes, they also make croissants, authentically French.