Résumé : |
"The salty nourishes, and the sweet rejoices", these are the words of Pierre Hermé, elected best pastry chef in the world in 2016. Often overshadowed by gastronomy and the names of great chefs, pastry-making, as well as the creators behind these sweet pleasures, have begun to make a name for themselves over the past twenty years. More and more recognized as an art in its own right, where precision and meticulousness are the key words, today's pastry-making is distinguished by its ability to revisit classics, emblematic desserts of the French heritage, and seems to want to dust off the recipes of our parents and grandparents. Transformation, creation, metamorphoses and even signature, pastry-making has become a haute couture creation, an art that we put one’s name on. Indeed, it is internationally known that France is known, recognized, and admired for its gastronomy. Coupled with this image of culinary excellence, we must note that what makes France famous on an international scale, remains in its art of handling the sweet: French pastry has always fascinated tourists coming to succumb to French sweets, and in recent years, this profession has become increasingly known, it has risen to the same rank of technicality as gastronomy, and great names of French pastry chefs are now known throughout the world, as Pierre Hermé and Cédric Grolet for example. The pastry has even ended up being represented on the small and big screen. For example, macaroons are everywhere, from the series Gossip Girl with the character Blair who eats macaroons in her bath all the time, to Sophia Copola's 2006 movie Marie-Antoinette, with the Queen making them macaroons as her guilty pleasure. Similarly, streaming giant Netflix has taken up the subject by creating a documentary called "Chef in a truck", which follows the famous pastry chef of the Ritz, François Perret, on a trip in a foodtruck to showcase his pastries in Los Angeles. In addition, Netflix has created a multi-episode documentary entitled "À l'école du chocolat", which follows pastry chef Amaury Guichon, star of the social media, known internationally for his sculptural pastries, and the series follows the forerunners of eight professionals trained by the chef at the school he founded. This is why we wanted to understand the reasons for this "boom" in luxury pastry, this growing interest among the public in a profession that until twenty years ago was known only to amateurs. Then we identified as the research problem the following: patisserie, which a few decades ago was of no particular interest and was just associated with a dessert to be eaten at the end of a meal, has now become an expensive ephemeral art that is attracting increasing interest. For this, we wanted to analyze the reasons why people buy and are increasingly interested in luxury pastries. The answer to this question will help us to reflect from a managerial point of view on how luxury patisseries manage this growing interest, and especially what their strategies are to surprise even more. |