Can you describe the Francine Pancake Day campaign for us?
Pancake Day is the only time of the year when Francine ventures beyond its usual shelves to gondola heads: an absolutely key time of the year for this brand! Francine also provided the impetus for the introduction of the Crêpes en Fête committee. This committee unites 5 crêpe-related brands, and is the only industry-wide committee to survive since 1998!

The Francine brand achieved its highest ever share of the Pancake Day market this year, so what made that possible?
Francine sold 3 million units for Pancake Day, giving us a market share of 44.4%; a level not seen since 2010! The roots of this success lie in a detailed sales and marketing policy fairly distributed between the brands represented on the committee. So this year, we were able to negotiate an agreement with E. Leclerc. The in-store promotions by our sales force also played a key role. Lastly, the comprehensive radio, press and online campaign also helped to build loyalty and recruit new consumers. All three were major assets in developing the leadership of Francine!

What exactly is the Go Clean programme?
The three priorities of the Go Clean programme are simplified recipes, sustainable ingredients and high nutritional value. We are gradually removing controversial ingredients from our recipes, sometimes at the request of customers, and sometimes at our own initiative. Naturally, for some recipes, this poses a technical challenge for our teams and also puts pressure on our suppliers, but it’s this process that will allow us to help the industry move forward on essential issues like these.

What does innovation mean to you?
For me, it’s all about applying creativity to create unique experiences and improving people's lives, whether in terms of health or convenience... My job puts me at the interface between many teams,
all of whom have different needs, so my role is to offer them products that meet their expectations. Our involvement in the innovation process begins at the earliest stage of generating new ideas alongside the sales and marketing teams, and runs right through to manufacturing. So you need good listening skills, coordination and perseverance for long-term projects like Go Clean.