Eye-to-eye with Technical Advisor Philippe Richard

A dedicated team of Technical Advisors is actively engaged in bringing Puratos’ products and concepts to our customers. They develop new recipes, give demonstrations and training to local teams and travel the world to discover new trends in the world of bakery, patisserie and chocolate. In this series of interviews, we introduce you to our specialists.Philippe Richard (44) is international Technical Advisor for patisserie. He gives international support to colleagues and customers worldwide, develops recipes, is responsible for the planning and training of patisserie at the Puratos University and played an important role in organizing the Industrial Patisserie Event.

Never a routine
Philippe joined Puratos in 2013. The thing he likes best about his job? “Every day is different, it’s never a routine.” That’s also the biggest challenge. The fact that every day is different, makes the organisation and timing of every project quite demanding. In Philippe’s opinion, a good Technical Advisor can be characterized by great organizational and communicational skills. Timing, knowledge and experience are indispensable too.

For a Technical Advisor, it’s very important to keep your creativity alive. Philippe does that in variety of ways:

• sharing his ideas with colleagues and asking them for input. 
• reading blogs, books, magazines  like Le Journal du Patissier and Fou de Patisserie
• rummaging through the internet and gaining ideas on Pinterest.

Philippe tries to improve himself every day. And that’s also the lesson he wants to share with his peers: “Never be satisfied. Always ask yourself: what did I do well? What can I do better tomorrow? What can I change? Try to improve yourself, every day again.”

Philippe played an important role in the organization of the Industrial Patisserie Event that took place in Brussels in March 2017. This 48 hour event, organized by Puratos, welcomed industrial patissiers to discover trends in patisserie and showcase the solutions Puratos can offer.  Philippe was responsible for the planning and organization of all patisseries that were served or displayed before and during the event. “Breads, pastries and chocolate: we produced more than 100 different items to display and taste. More than 12000 pieces in total!” A mammoth task, but totally worth it, according to Philippe. “It was great to be able to talk to customers, gather their feedback, share ideas with them, answer their questions and even solve some technical issues on the spot.”

Trends in patisserie
Philippe sees individual pastries as a trend: pastries in which we can adapt the flavour, colour and design very easily. After cupcakes, macarons, eclairs and tarts, meringues are now trending. “But,” expects Philippe, “if I have to play on one, I’d choose a pastry based on Baba au rhum.” Whatever trend customers want to work on, the Technical Advisors of Puratos can help them. By teaching them from the beginning, by sharing recipes, or by creating a tailor made recipe together.  

During our interview, we asked a few additional questions to Philippe: