It’s a loop that comes full circle for Vachon cakes. Sold to Mexican interests in 2014, they found a Quebecer at their head at the start of the year. Marie-Ève Royer, granddaughter of a pastry chef at Vachon, took over the presidency of Bimbo Canada, the owners of this legendary brand, last January. Portrait.
We can join Marie-Ève Royer live from Mexico, where the Bimbo company is based, we have the impression that she still runs a family business.
While his grandfather worked as a firefighter in Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, where Vachon cakes have been made for 100 years, his grandmother worked on the assembly line of the famous bakery. “Every year, she would decorate the Yule logs,” says Marie-Ève Royer. “It was several years ago, a big table with women. It was often the women on either side of the table. My grandmother used to make flowers with her gang of friends. »
“There is a small side that touches me in this story,” continues the one who grew up in the suburbs of Quebec. “My grandmother is still alive. When I return [en Beauce], I’m not sure everyone understands the whole company, but everyone in my family understands the Vachon company. »
The company has changed a lot since then. The factory run by the Vachon brothers passed into the hands of various investors at the turn of the 1970s. Bimbo acquired it in 2014. Automation replaced spatula creaming. Some 450 million cakes, or 20,000 tonnes of pastries, now leave the Sainte-Marie factory each year.
Marie-Ève Royer, despite her key position, continues to honor her colleagues. “I’d like to say it’s just robots, but no. That’s another 500 jobs. It’s teamwork,” she insists on several occasions.
Let the dough rise
The path to this high office was not a long calm river. After twenty years at Bimbo, she emerged from the shadows in 2019 when the company found itself plunged into one of the biggest crises in its history. The Chaudière River, which flows just in front of the Beauceron city, then came out of its bed during “centennial” floods. Dozens of homes were drowned and the factory was devastated. It was Marie-Ève Royer who came before politicians and the media to manage the calamity.
“It was difficult what we experienced with the floods in 2019. At the start, we wondered what we were going to do with that. We had a decision to make. What do we do with the factory? We decided to rebuild it. »
Thus, Vachon’s Quebec roots held on. Bimbo went into overdrive, investing $100 million to rebuild all the facilities. The work stoppage only lasted a few weeks. No less than 10 million were injected for the installation of a huge wall to protect against any future flooding. The factory today looks like a fortress. Besides, it is impossible to visit it; security and industrial secrets are also to be protected.
The secret recipe to last through the ages? The ability to “reinvent” oneself. The classics have never ceased to be at the top of the best-seller list, but… “it’s a mix of the iconic brands that have always made us successful and innovations”.
We also suspect an attachment that goes beyond the columns of sales figures. “My family and my heart are there”, drops the leader during the interview.
The future looks sweet for the flagship Beauceron. Its cakes could easily be exported south of the border, if the unemployment rate in the region were not around 2%, which slows down this desire for expansion.