Creating a new recipe is quite a story! A long but beautiful story. A thrilling life story full of surprising twists and turns. From the initial idea to the moment when it brings a smile of satisfaction to your face, high up in the mountains, our bars and purées go through a real saga, which can sometimes last more than two years... Between kilometre 0 and the moment you taste it, its life becomes a novel. But there's nothing fictional about it: all our products are 100% natural.
So, for our 5th anniversary, we've decided not to open our diary to you, because there's nothing secret about it, but the logbook of a Baouw recipe. To take you on a journey through all these crucially important chapters that you may not be aware of. Our ambition is not to win the Prix Goncourt, far from it, but simply to tell you, quite simply, what we experience on a daily basis... And to do that, what better writer than Fanny Hottegindre, Product Manager for over 4 years, and the instigator of all our innovations, whose story she tells here! From the kitchen to the summit, this is the story of a Baouw recipe!
THE PROLOGUE: ‘It's the market research that will decide whether or not to write the first page of a new story!'
‘By way of prologue, before anything else, we lay the foundations for the story with a market study. This is what's going to encourage us to write the first page of a new story, or not! This market research is like our kilometre 0, because it's a prerequisite for the start of each adventure. The idea is to ask consumers what they want, need and expect from Baouw, in order to create new products or improve existing ones! For example, when we were designing our savoury bars, we went to the finish line of the Maxi-Race, an iconic trail race around Lake Annecy, and asked enthusiasts what vegetables they would like in our energy bar recipes... Our athletes are also an important source of ideas, as we are fortunate to be in constant contact with our team of 40 athletes, whom we call on for these studies.'
THE INITIAL SITUATION: ‘We cultivate our status as a little troublemaker capable of breaking the codes of sports nutrition’.
‘As soon as we identify a demand, the Council of Elders meets. Around the table are our founding trio: Gilles Galoux, our marketing expert CEO; Benoit Nave, our nutritionist; Yoann Conte, our Michelin-starred chef; and myself. Our aim is to respond ‘Baouw-style’ to the needs raised by the market study. In other words, doing things our own way. We're cultivating our status as a little troublemaker capable of breaking the codes of sports nutrition. One innovation speaks for itself: a number of runners wanted us to develop gels. But Benoit alerted us to their harmful effect on health and performance. So we started working on a healthy, natural alternative to these gels. That's how our energy compotes came about! In a way, this brainstorm also reveals the collective dimension of the story: making a Baouw purée or bar is a team sport! A story in which not just one but several main characters shine... ’
THE STARTING ELEMENT: ‘At the end of our brainstorm, we have a set of specifications, which we use like a compass’.
‘At the end of this meeting, we have a set of specifications - like a roadmap or, better still, a compass - which will give us the exhaustive list of ingredients and nutritional guidelines provided by Benoit Nave. In other words, we know what fruit, vegetables, oilseeds, spices, herbs, plants, flowers and olive oil we're going to use; in what form and for what benefits. My role, then, is to make sure that the recipe we have devised is feasible. Not just in terms of sourcing the raw materials, but also in terms of producing it in a workshop. Because the story, while certainly romantic, can quickly become utopian. Sometimes it proves difficult to find a workshop capable of meeting the technical constraints imposed by our specifications. We then have to revise our copy slightly. For example, I remember one factory refused to allow us to use turmeric, saying that it turned all their production lines orange.
Baouw's view: Our ingredients break the rules!
Our technical constraints are many and vary from recipe to recipe because of the unusual ingredients we use. To name just a few, cider vinegar, Timut pepper and hibiscus not only surprise your taste buds, but also our production workshops, which have to adapt accordingly. Some of our ingredients can also be tricky to work with, and must be used with care, such as fir bud pepper, hand-harvested in the Pyrenees and bought at over €1,000 a kilo, or our extra virgin olive oil, which costs €44 a litre and is used in all our products.
THE FIRST PERIOD: ‘Yoann cooks, we taste, he adjusts, we taste again... and so on until we find the combination that satisfies us all perfectly.
‘This trigger, as the name suggests, sets off the twists and turns. The first one is my favourite! It takes place in Yoann Conte's Michelin-starred kitchen, which looks like a culinary laboratory, as we get together to put the recipe we've come up with into practice, using all the ingredients I've bought beforehand. That's when we get down to the nitty-gritty! The process is extremely iterative. Yoann cooks, we taste, he adjusts, we taste again... and so on until we find the combination that satisfies us all perfectly in terms of taste, texture and appearance. For my part, I take very scrupulous note of all the proportions. This takes a whole day, or even two, as we usually sleep on the recipe before coming back to confirm our impressions the next morning. Every time I come out of there, I'm amazed. Yoann always surprises us. He has a rare talent. He didn't get his two stars by chance!
THE SECOND PERIOD: ‘We taste the first prototype to confirm that what comes out of the factory is perfectly faithful to what comes out of Yoann's pots!
‘I then send my careful notes to the production workshop. The workshop then gives me feedback to check whether it is possible to produce the recipe on a large scale. For example, we didn't want to sterilise our purées because cooking them at 100°C destroys many of the micronutrients in the raw ingredients. This presented us with a real challenge: to ensure that our recipes could be preserved over time by pasteurisation alone, without any processing or unnatural additives, while still delivering the same promised taste! The workshop came up with an initial prototype. We tasted it to confirm that what came out of the factory was perfectly faithful to what came out of Yoann's pots!
THE THIRD PERIOD: ‘The penultimate episode turns the story into a thriller: the suspense becomes unbearable!'
‘The penultimate twist turns the story into a thriller. At that point, the suspense becomes unbearable. It's the final moment, when we test the first batch of our new bar or purée on a panel made up of our athletes and consumers. This test phase is absolutely crucial, as the recipe is reworked until it is perfected.
L'ULTIME PÉRIPÉTIE: “In parallel with the test phase, we're starting to design everything that's going to ‘coat’ the product and accompany its launch.”
'In parallel with the test phase, we're starting to design everything that will 'coat' the product and accompany its launch, so that everyone is aware of its release on D-Day, both the Baouwers who trust us and the retail stores. The story behind the product, the sales pitch and the packaging are fundamental elements... We start as early as possible, as deadlines can quickly stretch. This is particularly true of packaging, which is chosen according to our global guidelines. When we have several options at our disposal, we always select the most eco-responsible solution and the one that is most consistent with our approach to practicality. We are aware that we create waste. But the idea is to generate as little as possible. This is also the chapter in which we present our new recipe to the Ecocert label, in order to obtain this organic certification which is so important to us.'
THE DEPLOYMENT: “The start of production is greeted with real relief, in the sense that it can come after more than 2 years of work and research.
'At the end of all these adventures comes the denouement: the departure for production. This comes as a real relief, in the sense that it can happen after more than 2 years of work and research. This was particularly the case for our protein bar (product link), which took a record 24 months to develop, until we achieved the right balance between texture, taste and naturalness of our protein intake. With chemical proteins, this story would have been much shorter, but we would have had to compromise our values and convictions. Which is unthinkable! By contrast, the Banana-Kiwi-Vanilla energy compote (product link) broke all records for fluidity. A fine story, but only a few pages long. We were right on target every step of the way, with no need for adjustment. It was an exhilarating experience! And what's more, it's a real success: it's enormously popular! '
L'œil de Baouw: Why did you choose pumpkin protein?
Fanny Hottegindre: 'The molecule on which our protein bar is based had to meet very strict specifications, in line with our taste requirements and our values. It's true that the majority of today's vegan protein bars are based on rice or pea proteins imported from China, but for us, it was inconceivable that our raw material would have to travel around the planet before arriving in our kitchens. So we opted for pumpkin seed protein, which, thanks to its high assimilation index, its composition rich in essential amino acids, its taste, its texture and the fact that it's produced locally, proved to be the best compromise! If I had to find a single fault with it, it would be its color. It's green, which explains the rather surprising color of our bars! (smile)' Benoit Nave: “Pumpkin seed protein ticked absolutely all the boxes. While it has a slightly lower assimilation index than egg white protein, the most effective of all, it nevertheless has the advantage of not excluding people who don't eat animal proteins. Indeed, we wanted to design a vegan protein bar that would appeal to as many people as possible.'
THE FINAL SITUATION: “The story usually ends at the top of a mountain, on a bike or in sneakers, with a big smile of satisfaction.”
'Like all good stories, our new recipes have a happy ending... Usually at the top of a mountain, on a bike or in sneakers, with a big smile of satisfaction. That's the epilogue we want to write for every innovation, which is why we're so meticulous about following this narrative pattern. It's also why we don't innovate every day. We prefer to innovate little but well!'
