05 Innovation
The choux must go on
In 1958, Louis Pavailler was the first person to bring hot air recycling technology to the baking sector in France. Today, his eponymous company continues to dedicate a significant part of its turnover to R&D, helping customers achieve consistency with even the most fragile products, says Pavailler product manager Sébastien Audras
F 54 Aliworld
ounded in France in 1946, Pavailler started life as a heating company. It wasn’t until 1958 that its creator Louis Pavailler, a self-taught engineer and central heating installer, decided to branch out into ovens. He introduced a
technology that was well-known outside his home country but had never been attempted by a French oven manufacturer: hot air recycling. Although it’s been joined by many other systems in the intervening decades, the cyclothermic oven has been the company’s flagship product ever since. Over that time, Pavailler has also been through multiple acquisitions and sales by British and American firms, including APV, Baker Perkins and Aga, most recently taking its place under Italian foodservice giant Ali Group’s umbrella in 2007. But the brand has never lost its focus on the power and robustness that set its ovens apart from competitors and are required to create the hot, crusty bread it has become best known for.
While Pavailler’s products are still marketed largely to artisanal bakeries in France, where it does 70% of its business, the company also exports to 90 countries around the world and is growing in segments including supermarkets, restaurants, hotels and industrial laboratories. Te most recent addition to
Pavailler’s range is the Topaze Opera Convection Oven, which is aimed primarily at pastry chefs. Its ‘Fine Crust’ system allows them to adapt the humidity within the chamber depending on the product inside. As award-winning pastry chef
Frédéric Hawecker (pictured, far right) explains: “Tis oven has an interesting little trick. You can let air into the oven to dry the product more or less. For example, if I cook shortbread, I leave it open so air can get in, preventing humidity on the shortbread. If I want cake to stay soft and moist, I close it slightly.” Tis results in a level of
consistency hard to achieve for fragile products such as choux pastry. “I'm impressed with the regularity of this oven,” says Hawecker. “We had another fan oven before, and we had to turn the trays to get even baking. Here we don't have to turn the trays. It's really a pleasant oven to use.” If something does go wrong,
it doesn’t have to mean a week out of business either, according to Pavailler product manager Sébastien Audras. “After-sales service is really important to our customers. Many of them work in small bakeries and if their oven fails, it’s a catastrophe for them. Each spare part ordered before 3pm is sent the same day so you are able to have it delivered the next morning," he says.
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