Merand: 70 years of expertise in bakery machinery
PREAMBLE
70 years of expertise in baking machines and dough mechanization
Who are we to talk to you about kneading, division resting, dough relaxation, scoring, baking, or final proofing?
For over 70 years, MERAND has designed and manufactured baking machines for artisans, industrial bakeries and panification professionals. Our baguette shaping machines, dividers, divider-moulders, dough rest bins and dough mechanization lines support bakers every day around the world.
Before dissecting gluten, density or tenacity, an honest question deserves an answer: why listen to us? Because behind every engineering choice in our machines lies a precise physical reason, and because we have been doing nothing but this for seven decades.
- 1954 first shaper
- + 10,000 installations worldwide
- + 15 patents & innovations
- 60% of revenue from export
From a fuel burner to the first shaper
The story does not begin with a shaper, but with fire. In the early 1900s, the Guibert company designed fuel burners for bakery ovens (an activity that has completely disappeared today). It was they who, in 1954, created the very first baguette shaper: the Sprint. In the 1970s, Alex Merand bought the Guibert company and founded the company that would bear his name. The adventure is thus 70 years old; the MERAND name was born from this acquisition.
We claim this heritage.
The choice that makes an expert in baking equipment
The company is then taken over by its sales director, Pascal Gérard, who embarks on a diversification phase: the MERAND Group then brought together MERAND Pro (resale and after-sales service of bakery equipment in Brittany), MERAND MERCURIAL (manufacture and fitting of specialty food shops) and MERAND MECAPATE (dough mechanization machines). Then comes the obvious truth, the one that is the foundation of our legitimacy: you cannot do everything well! The decision is made to abandon everything to keep only the trade where we were experts: MERAND MECAPATE. Yannick Gérard then takes the company to the international stage, while Maryse Badra consolidates its management. Our authority therefore comes not only from seniority: it comes from an act of renunciation.
We could have remained generalists, we chose to be specialists.
Proof from those who could have been our rivals
There is a simple test to assess expertise: look at who manufactures for whom. For years, MERAND produced its shapers, dividers or dough rest bins for other manufacturers who marketed them under their own brand, such as STAF and many other brands that still exist today and which we cannot mention for obvious reasons of confidentiality. When names among the most respected in the profession distribute your machines as their own, it says a great deal about the level of trust placed in our expertise.
A creed that became a method: respect for the dough
Pascal Gérard, the soul of the house, never ceased to ensure that our machines were as respectful as possible of the dough, whatever the production speed: respect for the dough was his creed. This principle has guided every engineering department since. But good intentions are not enough: we made it a process. At the Baking Lab, every customer comes to test our machines with their own flour, under the watchful eye of our test baker.
These tests notably allow us to observe the impact of our equipment on gluten development, cell structure, fermentation and the final quality of dough pieces.
Expertise that protects itself
Seventy years of innovation leave documented traces. MERAND holds a portfolio of around fifteen patents and protected innovations, including Alvéo+®, AlvéoForm®, Rollscoup®, Pointop®, VarioPress®, Nyltex®. Our engineering department, composed of 5 Mechanical or Automation experts, has enabled us to develop patents that each answer a concrete panification problem.
For us, innovation is not a slogan but a discipline.
A company structured to stay ahead
Expertise cannot be preserved, it must be maintained. MERAND has retained from its heritage a structured group logic: a management committee, performance indicators monitored month after month, R&D nourished by partner bakers, design and manufacturing rooted in France thanks to the support of our main shareholder, the DELLEN Group, which provides us with autonomy and security. The results speak for themselves: more than 10,000 installations worldwide, and more than 60% of revenue from international sales. Our machines work dough in all climates and with all flours.
A well-applied physical principle travels better than a commercial argument.
Those who make MERAND
Behind the machines, there are hands. Those of our welders, metal workers, electricians, fitters and assemblers in the workshop, engineers, technicians who install and provide ongoing support to our customers.
Those of Xavier, our baker, born in Normandy (no one is perfect for a Breton company), trained throughout Europe, in England as in Spain, before returning to his native lands to open his bakery. He is our guarantee that every machine is made for bakers: he runs the Baking Lab, welcomes customers, manages tests, is never stingy with advice, and travels the world to install our lines and train those who use them.
Those of Thierry, who has led the company since October 2022. Before becoming general manager, he was a baker: CAP and BEP in hand, Tour de France of bakeries, then his own bakery. Demonstrator and head baker, passing through distribution, enabled him to acquire complete technical skills. Then eight years in milling, closest to the raw material with the direction of an organic mill and the marketing of flours to the Agri-food Industry and for export, enabled him to understand the entire supply chain. From wheat to flour, from flour to bread, from bread to the global market, he has traveled the entire supply chain far and wide with passion.
Women and men who know flour, dough and machines and who understand why every parameter must be respected.
"Our machines are designed by bakers, for bakers. These technical files simply make visible the science they have applied for 70 years."
This is why these technical files exist. Not to sell one more machine, but to share what seven decades of respect for dough have taught us. From applied mechanics to biochemistry, from kneading to shaping, from dividing dough pieces to panification, these technical files are designed to transmit our expertise in baking machines, dough work: our passion for baking.
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At the rate of one episode per week, we invite you on a journey into the wonderful world of panification, these biological, chemical and physical effects will be dissected for you, simply for the pleasure of sharing our passion with you.
Come meet us!
We welcome you to our BakingLab® to test our machines. Bring your flour, bring your questions, we'll bring the rest.
First episode: The science of kneading
What really happens in your mixer