Apprentice Bakers in Shanghai
Since 2008 Shanghai Young Bakers has been providing training in French bakery to some thirty marginalized Chinese youth each year. This training program is supported by companies including Grands Moulins de Paris, Lesaffre and Accor.
The typical French bread baguettes, pastry, brioches and other types of bread have no more secret to the 2016 promotion of Shanghai Young Bakers (SYB). At the end of the one-year training in Shanghai, the majority of these thirty young people will work in big hotels or bakery shops which flourish everywhere in China. The SYB program provides these youth selected by the NGOs in their original provinces with training in bakery which is gaining popularity in China, and above all, with the bases of the savoir-faire of the French bakery. “The bakery industry is developing very fast but it has trouble finding qualified bakers in China. Even though the salary of our young graduates is not very high at the very beginning, Shanghai Young Bakers really open professional perspectives for them,” explains Emilie Rigaud, Program Director.
Theoretical and practical apprenticeship
During the year, the students split their time between internships at companies and theoretical courses. They also learn basic English and how to work in teams. “When they have a concern, they tend to keep it to themselves. We teach them that in a professional world, it is essential to communicate,” Emilie Rigaud specifies. The bakery teachers of SYB, who have themselves graduated from the program, have further improved their skills at the Ecole Française de Boulangerie et de Pâtisserie (EFBP) in Aurillac, France. The practice is successful, as it is an SYB graduate who won the highest score for the baguette at the Bakery World Cup this year.
Transitioned to the Chi Heng Foundation in 2010, SYB is self-financed partially by organizing trainings (for professionals and the public) and selling bakery products, and by sponsorships. The three major partners, Solidarity Accor Hotels (Accor Foundation), Lesaffre, and Henkel, join many other enterprises in providing donations to SYB. Grands Moulins de Paris provides the flour, Lesaffre the yeast, Sinodis (a Chinese distributor controlled by Savencia) the ingredients, Kolb the equipment, and Mazars the accounting services. The budget in total reaches 1.9 million yuan (255,000 euros).
To Christian Poirot, Director of Export of Gands Moulins de Paris (GMP), supporting the organization is natural. “Training is important to us: GMP created our own school in 1929. The project of SYB is built upon the determinations of volunteers. Professional training as a whole, and in bakery in particular, is one of the weak links in China,” he explains. “There can’t be any development of our products if there is no good application of them, in China and elsewhere …”
Possible social growth
Aged between 17 and 23, these SYB students did not have an easy life. Some had to leave school at the age of 15. Some are orphans. Others have two parents but only see them once a year at the most because the parents work far away. “I started working at the age of 16 and I have very little education. To learn the baking techniques is very important to me,” explains He Liu, 22 years old. Liu Dong, 19 years old, is also happy to receive the training. “I could have gone to a university, but not a good one, which means I could never find an interesting job. Baking makes me happy, and my parents can save the money for my sister’s education,” he explains. With the diploma in hand, the majority of the SYB graduates choose to improve their apprenticeship by working in a big city, but some already hope to return to their home town one day to open their own business.
While the Chinese millers rather study the Australian wheat (soft) or the American and Canadian wheat (hard) to enhance their flour, in order to make the small soft bread as it is the tradition in Asia, the SYB program diffuses the culture of French bakery and the ingredients, while in turn creating possibly new opportunities for the French wheat and millers.
Marine Digabel
A Chinese champion of bakery
Participating for the first time at the World Bakery Cup in February 2016, the Chinese team ended with a good result, missing the podium by only one step, behind teams from Taiwan, South Korea, and France. Zhang Zhenghai, one of the three members of the team, was sent by SYB as a promotion of its program for the first time. Trained at EFBP in Aurillac, France, he was a graduate of SYB before going to the competition, thanks for the support of Lesaffre. In Paris, it is he that obtained the highest score at baguette making, an excellent recognition for the good work of SYB.
