“The keyword is pleasure!”

Baker, Cyril Hervieux is only on Saturdays. The rest of the time, Seinomarin is a manager in an insurance company. Meeting with a tireless enthusiast for whom good bread rhymes with organic and local products.

In his garage turned into a bakery in Bihorel, Seine-Maritime, Cyril Hervieux has been in the kitchen since six in the morning. On this Saturday, November 12, this Norman skips the lie to devote himself to his passion. During the week he is a manager in an insurance company. On the weekends he bakes.

“Cooking has really become a passion late in life.“, recognizes the one who has chosen to work only with organic and local flours and to reduce their waste. “The key word is pleasure, that of offering loaves that I like to eat, that look like me”presses.

As with many French people, the birth was a click. Cyril Hervieux decides to pass a CAP in correspondence bakery and then follows an internship. But to exercise he needs equipment and therefore money. So she opens an online fundraiser, takes out a loan and dips into his savings. In total, he has invested 40,000 euros in equipment, including an oven, mixer and refrigerated lathe. And in September 2022 he launches his company of him.

His micro bakery now has 60 customers, mostly neighbours, who book bread via text message. “I only sell to order so as not to have too many losses. If I have little I have a machine that allows me to transform hard bread into breadcrumbs to stay on zero waste”He explains.

If Sarah Hervieux, his wife, doesn’t always understand his passion, she encourages it from the start. “During the week he only thinks about this: making bread, cooking. When we started talking about the project, I felt it was important for him to go through with it”.

Today, Cyril says he has found his balance between his work and his passion. “I’m the manager of a team of 18, so it’s dense“, emphasizes the one who calls himself happy on Saturday “All alone inside [s]a bakery, to do [s]on the bread, knead the dough slowly and watch it grow in the oven”. “For me they are two totally different things but they complement each other”He believes.

In the future, Cyril hopes to keep up to 100 customers. “I don’t want to grow too fast. I rely a lot on word of mouth trying to be with local customers, people who will come on foot or by bike. I don’t necessarily want customers who are 20 or 30 kilometers away by car, it wouldn’t correspond to this micro-bakery” .

At over 50 and faced with the difficulties of this profession, Cyril Hervieux does not envisage retraining. Baking once a week is enough for his happiness.