French baking, with a twist

French baking, with a twist

Vegetal bakeries like Land&Monkeys are part of a growing trend in foodservice. Tina Nielsen explores how Bongard’s expertise and equipment have supported the zero-carbon-impact group’s expansion.

Land&Monkeys was launched in 2020 with a mission to create the best French bakery products with a vegan twist. “The keywords to describe us are plant-based, classic and delicious. Our motto is ‘Dream fair, eat fun’,” says head executive chef baker Marc Raffa. Appealing to a broad demographic, from locals to tourists – and, of course, vegans – Land&Monkeys operates five company-owned bakeries and three franchises across Paris, Bordeaux, and Aix-en-Provence. Several more are slated to open this year. The strategy is to strengthen the brand domestically before expanding abroad, all while maintaining a zero-carbon-impact mission.

The busy kitchen focuses on four different product categories: bread, pastry, viennoiserie and snacking. Bread is made with 100% organic flour sourced within 200km of each store, while pastries are made using Yumgo, the company’s own plant-based “eggs”, created by founders Rodolphe and Yoshimi Landemaine. Viennoiserie, including croissants, pains au chocolat and chaussons aux pommes, are baked with vegetable butter and animal-free milk. The snacking menu, which accounts for 25% of total turnover, changes every three months based on seasonal ingredients. Bread, viennoiserie and brioche are all made on site, while pastries and cakes are assembled on site.

Land of opportunity

Olivier Bosc, key account manager at Bongard, worked closely with Raffa to support the national rollout of Land&Monkeys. “We were able to provide them with comprehensive help, from project study to aftersales support,” he says. Land&Monkeys plans to have all future bakeries and franchises replicate the existing ones, so every baker works with the same equipment, removing the need to adapt recipes.

To support this consistency, Bongard has proposed a complete range of equipment, from mixing to baking, that will deliver the same results – whether in a 20m2 or 80m2 space and regardless of the location. “The main challenge was to offer equipment with a high capacity, because of the large volumes sold every day, that produced the level of quality they require,” says Bosc. Bongard’s Orion Evo and Soleo Evo deck ovens met the challenge.

The latter is a modular model that fits into tight spaces, still performing at the level of a traditional deck oven. Land&Monkeys now plans to create a dedicated laboratory for training and preparing bread and Viennese pastries. Bongard will accompany the team in this next phase, as it continues to develop plant-based alternatives to classic French bakery goods.

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