Brioche Dorée takes off

Brioche Dorée was to thrive on straightforward principles of high-quality products and service and first-rate locations. “Location, location and location” in the words of Trujillo. The concept grew at a rate of 25% a year. In 1981, Louis Le Duff opened his first outlet in Paris, appropriately in Rue de Rennes where again customers found the wafting fragrance of warm croissants and brioches irresistible. The national press announced the arrival in the capital of the young Breton entrepreneur who proved that the French could do good casual food.

Until then, Louis Le Duff had been opening outlets one by one as his finances allowed because, as he said, “to keep your independence, the ego must never overtake the cash flow”. But in 1984 an excellent opportunity arose to buy a chain of 12 units and convert them into Brioche Dorée outlets. To do this, he sold Restaurel to Sodexho without too much heart-searching since collective catering is mainly in the hands of a few giants. There would have been no place for Louis Le Duff who was born 20 years too late to make a mark in this industry. The sale gave him the capital he needed and, above all, he kept his Restaurel management team.

This enabled him to organise Brioche Dorée which was expanding by five to ten units a year. Brioche Dorée crossed the national boundaries and spread to Montreal in 1986, taking Louis Le Duff back to his roots in a way. In 1988 it was the turn of Japan, then the West Indies in 1990 where Groupe Hayot, a retailer and agri-food industry specialist, opened a dozen Brioche Dorée franchises.

This was the start of international expansion and franchising, which continued in the UK in 1994 and Italy in 1996. Brioche Dorée turned some of the best profits in the sector – 17.5% of EBITDA⁽¹⁾ on average over 20 years, which enabled the tireless entrepreneur to pursue growth but remain independent.

“Money has never been the driving force for me in business. It is the result of what you build and the fuel to carry on investing to build more” he considers. The punters put the success of the company down to Le Duff’s determination and his team’s enthusiasm. When a journalist asked him about his success in business, he stressed, “More than intelligence, more than talent and even more than genius, the excellent results are down to the enthusiasm and hard work of a close-knit team.”