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Spanish
REPORT
''In recent years we’ve invested €170m in new product innovation'', said Jordi Gallés, Europastry CEO and ESADE alumni at the latest Matins ESADE talk sponsored by Bluecap in conjunction with Spanish daily La Vanguardia. He highlighted his company’s major drive to innovate and go global. ''In this respect, in recent years we have inaugurated Cereal, our new international R&D centre in Sant Joan Despí (Barcelona)''.
He also underlined that ''logistics complicate the international arena''. ''Logistics account for 40% of the cost of bread so we cannot aim for sales more than 500 kilometres away from our factories'', said Gallés. As a result, the firm has factories in Spain, Portugal, Holland, Turkey and the USA, ''so we can sell doughnuts in Nueva York and croissants in Paris,'' said the Europastry CEO.
100% frozen pastry
During his talk, Jordi Gallés emphasised that Europastry ''is the only firm dealing exclusively in frozen pastry'' and that ''we want to keep it this way''. Gallés went on to explain that ''a few years ago we sold El Molí Vell in order to focus more on this sector in the regions where we operate''. At the moment, as Gallés pointed out, ''50% of our turnover is from bread and 50% from pastries. ... The Frida buyout was essential in achieving this. They make basically frozen pastries and one decisive decision taken during the merger was to make the managing director of Frida the head of Europastry.''
The importance of innovation and growth
''Our firm’s first product (frozen baguettes) now accounts for just 8% of our sales. Five per cent of our sales are products launched less than a year ago'', explained Gallés to show how important innovation is.
Gallés said that the company’s growth was sustained (€521m last year) and that its sales were now distributed amongst traditional outlets (neighbourhood bakeries and company associates) 29%; food outlets, 39%; and horeca outlets, 32%.
Follow and participate on the event with the hashtag #MatinsESADE
For further information:
esadealumni@esade.edu