Laurent Patissier - a French fortune in Australia

I guess this article began its gestation when David announced that he had asked the 'baker' in Coles where their rustic baguette dough came from, and had been told that it came from Laurent. Coles rustic baguettes are a favourite with us - they are almost as good as French baguettes and really cheap - only $2.50 each. Their other sourdough bread and their batards are also lovely, and they may also come from Laurent but I do not know this for sure. These are their baguettes.

So I just stored this little bit of interesting information away and forgot about it. Until today.

But first - who is Laurent Patissier you may ask? Well I always thought it was just some enterprising Australian who had cashed in on the chicness of French patisseries. But no he is an actual Frenchman, and is actually called Laurent - Laurent Boillon, from Aix-en-Provence. He now has fifteen shops in Melbourne apparently but he set up his first in the Como complex in 1993. Our local one is in the somewhat upmarket Doncaster Shoppingtown.

They are posh patisseries, with some bread - so posh they don't have prices on their products. Which is always a bit off-putting I think. I also saw an article about macarons in Melbourne which decried their offering. But I have once had coffee and cake there and I do remember it as being rather nice. Whether I like it or not is irrelevant though - what is relevant is that they are hugely successful. The last time we went to visit the Laurent shop in Doncaster we couldn't have got in anyway because it was full - inside and out - they have an outside sitting area. And David refused to go there because of the lack of displayed price.

Today we visited friends who are so francophile they regularly watch the French news, in French, and they showed us a recent segment which was all about Laurent. You too can see it here. (If you speak French that is, because it is in French with no subtitles.) He is a Frenchman, from Aix-en-Provence, trained in the best Paris establishments who wanted to set up his own shop but found it difficult, nay impossible to raise the money in France. And so, after a stint at the Radisson in Cairns, he came to Melbourne and decided to try his luck here. The banks had no problem with lending money. He said that the French banks did not like entrepreneurs. And his empire has grown, so that he is now a multi-millionaire, with 15 shops a couple of huge factories, and supplies supermarkets, restaurants, hotel chains and even Qantas (and other airlines too). Not bad. Here he is in his expensive car giving the interview to the French.

Coles recently had to go to court to defend their statement, 'baked today, sold today'. Because, of course, they do not 'bake' the bread themselves. They finish off premade and prefrozen bread from the likes of Laurent. There were even stories of it all coming from Ireland. Why any sensible person would have thought the bread was actually made in the Coles store I have no idea. You can see into the 'bakery' and you can see that there is no equipment for making bread there. I believe Laurent was a witness in the court case. Anyway - the bread hasn't changed - they have just had to take that sales line off of their bread.

The television news segment had pictures of the factory here in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton. He talked about how they were developing modern, innovative, manufacturing methods to produce 'artisan' bread - and I have to say it all looked pretty nice - untouched by human hand though it was and being churned out in vast quantities from shiny large machines. He's now looking to moving into China. Good luck with that perhaps.

Just another example of the foodie wonder that is Melbourne.