Europastry in the press: El País
November 2009

In the 1950's, Pere Gallés wanted to be an architect and his desire was to go to Barcelona to study, but his father convinced him to stay in Castellterçol (Vallès Oriental) and take the reins of family business, a traditional bakery that had been founded in 1860 by his grandfather. There he learned the secrets of a profession which he now adores, and ended up founding Europastry, which is leader in Spain in the manufacture and marketing of frozen bread and pastries. On his 30th birthday, the entrepreneur left Castellterçol and opened a bakery in Badalona, El Molí Vell, which was the first in a chain that today owns 200 outlets in Spain, mostly in Barcelona and its metropolitan area.

Fripan was created to supply bread and pastries to the chain's establishments. It was the beginning of a business that has not stopped growing. We chose to freeze the bread after baking , a process that maintains much better the bread's qualities. Europastry opened in 1990 Spain's first automatic parbaked bread line, and opened a niche market until eight years later, when other firms began to copy the formula. In 2002, Europastry acquired its main competitor in the market for frozen dough, Frida, claiming the leadership in Spain and Portugal.

With a dozen production facilities, which employ 2,500 workers, Europastry's turnover last year was of 360 million euros, and a plus 10% over the previous year growth rate will be maintained this year, according to Gallo. The crisis has significantly reduced sales in the pastry product line - "not considered a staple food," justifies the President of the company, but the losses have been offset by strengthening the bread sales.

Europastry has invested 45 million euros in its plant Vallmoll (Alt Camp), which will create hundreds of jobs, to increase the production of bread Gran Reserva, a product that the company launched successfully a year ago . "This is an old-fashioned bread, and requires more than seven hours of a triple fermentation", says Galles. "We have recovered the art of making bread that I inherited from my family, but enhancing it with the latest technology", he adds.

Convinced that innovation is key to company growth, Gallés is proud to have created an R & D team of 20 professionals, that work to launch new products such as a healthier pastries range for children, with less calories and no partially hydrogenated fats. With a network of 140 distributors, Europastry exports 15% of sales and is the fourth European company in the trade.

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