PARIS - France which is home to the baguette, the savory, sharp staple of a legendary gastronomy. But try just always a fresh in the evening or on a holiday, or even in August when a large part of the country's 33,000 bakeries are closed.
Jean-Louis Hecht thinks, that he the answer.
Open the Baker from the Northeast, which has rolled out a 24-hour automated baguette France donors, much promising warm bread for the hungry night owls, shift workers or anyone else, who don't have time to bring, while their bakery is hours.
"This is the bakery of tomorrow," Hecht, announced the extension in Paris planned to Europe and even the United States "If other bakers not, give that want to niche, they go to decimated get."
For now but is much.
He has only two machines - in Paris, another in the town of Hombourg-Haut in France - each in addition to the own baking trades. The machines take partial pioneers breads bake up and deliver them all for 1 € ($1.42) dampen within seconds customers,.
Despite the extension of the fast-food chains, millions of French remain loyal their beloved baguette: it is the largest breakfast basic - usually with butter and jam - and the preferred accompaniment for cheese, lunch and dinner.
Customer experience is still a back seat to lifestyle rhythms here often. Many shops in small towns and even lower traffic areas of Paris close to noon. And in August, many companies - including bakeries - shutdown for part or all summer vacation month.
Late-night supermarkets are rare, also in Paris. And they are usually considered to be a source of substandard, despair, not the handicraft products from certified Baker.
Pike wants his automated baguette machine, to fill the gaps.
His first attempt two years ago ran into repeated technical problems. Now with the help of a Portuguese engineer and improved technology, Pike developed a new generation machine, which in Hombourg-Haut in the January operation started.
He sold 1,600 baguettes in its debut month, and almost 4,500 in July. If this set, the $50,000 be ($71,000) engine for release within a year, Hecht said.
"If you sell 100 baguettes per day, a margin of 33% (profit) is: it is phenomenal," he said, adding that he has signed up three patents.
His second baguette dispenser in the northeast of Paris began last month.
Pike came up with the idea a decade ago. Er how many French bakers - lived upstairs from his bakery in Hombourg-Haut and customers come would scrounge for a baguette, to hold them until the morning often knocking at his home after closing.
"" My wife said: "We have never, no peace!"so I said, 'we are distributor of bread, and we are alone,' "Hecht recalls."
Now, he thinks that the automated bread dispenser could revolutionize the lifestyle of the Baker, of which many before dawn get up to go to work. With the machine, she could in a little sleep, he says.
In contrast to bakery fresh bread, this baguettes are precooked, a technique, industrial, high-volume bread maker, the vendors French at many provide. Pike calls it "a good compromise". The machine has at the same time in a room cool store approximately 120 baguettes.
Customers get no choice. The machine churns out only one product: a hard crust "tradition" style loaf - a poet and crispy cousin of the standard baguette. Everything not sold out after 72 hours thrown.
Innovators have for many years to develop baguette dealer, but no one has yet managed according to the officials at the Paris bakers Union. Earlier attempts hit problems inventory management, wet or warm bread served or not win great attractiveness.
Which were an associated press Newsroom taste test reviews especially favorable, from "Is it good!", "I never would have thought that it came from a donor" to "The crust is a bit soft."
However, French skeptics were in force.
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"For me it is not even baked bread." It has not kneaded and baked at the point of sale - by definition, it is a machine, "Marc Nexhip of the Union said the Paris bakers, who admits he is not yet nor tried."I am not convinced that the good taste in the course of time can be maintained. Maybe for 15 minutes - but not for several hours. "
"It is certainly convenient - but it's just not quite the same as fresh bread," a 31-year-old pharmacy said Tiphaine Ath, technicians, according to a collection in Paris for lunch. "Is five seconds, and it prepared?" "I have my doubts."
But for Pike, it is with the time change.
"It's like with banks: before each, a plate went;" Now, everyone used ATMs, "he said." "It will be the same with bread: today, everybody goes to the bakery." "Tomorrow they will go the baguette dispenser."
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