Always at the heart of “100% good living” in business, Brâam was oriented at its creation in 2017 on well-being, to refocus the following year on the cafeteria, “with healthy, natural and committed solutions”, says Alexis de Loynes, its CEO and co-founder with Yann Simon. From there, the start-up sees its turnover increase, customers develop, funds rise (€2 million in December 2019)… Until the Covid, which comes to upset the world in general, that of the company in particular with the telework which settles and the health measures which are essential. Brâam takes it and adapts; adds water fountains and hydroalcoholic gel dispensers. And continues to grow, perhaps less strongly but very surely…
What is Braam today?
It is a healthy, natural and committed cafeteria with more ecological, more economical bean coffee machines, cool, sparkling, temperate water fountains, connected to the public water network, both in “table-top” version ”, but also snacks and organic fruit baskets. Customers come to us for this new generation cafeteria side, in line with the aspirations of young employees. They often choose us to change from their classic solutions, and bring us in for the same calls for tenders as the connected fridges.
Wouldn’t it be logical to associate yourself with those who offer connected fridges then?
Indeed… Moreover, for a very short time, they have been interested in us as a strategic partner.
Where are you in your development?
Our growth has been slowed down by the health crisis but it remains strong: + 6% in 2020, (compared to – 40% for AD as a whole), + 19% in 2021 (+10% for AD) and this year we should reach 2.5 M€ and above all we are in balance with a team of about twenty collaborators, 12 permanent contracts. We are established in all types of companies, whether large groups or SMEs, 70% in the Paris region. In any case, the vending machine offer needs a new lease of life; the model has been very impacted, the sector is rated E in the Xerfi study, it is still a signal to be taken seriously. We all together lost 30% of coffee volume, our offers held up better because we do a lot of financial leasing. Okay, we made less coffee, but we continued to pay for the machines.
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You talk about rental, how is it organized?
It’s turnkey rental – we favor long-term contracts of 30 months -: customers pay a fixed rent, which includes the provision of the coffee machine, full service maintenance – we are a service center Jura approved, a brand with which we work extensively – and all consumables such as filters, descaling etc. To this is added a more flexible, modifiable subscription: we estimate your quantity of coffee, we deliver it to you every month but you can adjust according to your consumption linked to teleworking, holidays etc., it is a model interesting. Coffee is then offered to employees at 80 to 90% of our customers: because, as we are around 22/23 € per kilo for 120 coffees, it is not too heavy financially for them and they have there is a growing need to make employees want to come back to find themselves. Offering a coffee is not enough leverage, but it helps. Very large groups charge for coffee because it costs them too much; they are interested in hybrid systems, with for example a free coffee per day. We are on cashless, so when the coffee is not free, employees pay by credit card or badge. On the fountains, the water is obviously free…There is a very nice synergy between them and the coffee machines, we often sell the duo.
What about snacking then?
The activity represented 30% of our turnover before the Covid, it was considerably reduced during, suddenly we pushed the coffee machines and the water fountains (launched in 2020 precisely) for which we felt a real infatuation. And since we haven’t found a real differentiating model -it’s AD with just slightly healthier products-, we keep the activity, because we need it for certain calls for tenders, but it doesn’t is more of a strategic axis for us. It no longer represents more than 5% of our business volume. As for the baskets of organic fruit delivered every week and offered by companies to their employees as a little attention, it’s nice but it’s not what pays wages. All these offers are independent…
Have you also been offering hydroalcoholic gel dispensers since the health crisis?
Yes, launching this offer helped us; it saved us from moping around and allowed us to keep the teams motivated… With it, we garnered a lot of turnover -€300K-, less profitability, but we put this offer less forward, because we less needed… when we thought it would become a must. During this period, we also gave a lot of thought to connected fridges.
Does that mean you could get into the segment?
We could have done it in 2020, today, the competition is very strong, the fundraising very important (Popchef announced having raised 15 M€ the day before the interview) and the price war has begun. This is very good for the consumer but at the entrepreneurial level, it may be difficult. So we have no interest in getting started, especially since we don’t want to be forced to raise funds again. For us, it is very important to be financially independent.
What about the impact of inflation?
He is real. First on coffee – its price soared at the end of 2021, we therefore increased our prices by 10% at the start of the year and a second increase in 2022 is not excluded -, then on snacking which we made the mistake of not increasing the prices on snacking when there is an inflation on the cost of purchase. The soaring cost of gas is also impacting us… for our CNG trucks.
You stay on the lookout, we saw it during the crisis, what could be your avenues for development?
I see a lot of interesting solutions being developed for the business world, such as cup/glass washers – this would be relevant in addition to our coffee machines and water coolers; mate machines too – an original alternative to coffee…
Comments collected on June 1
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