Rodolphe Landemaine, Snack to the Future

In the early 2000s, even before the networks became visible at the national level, Maison Landemaine was one of the players for the Parisian bakery. Driven by the ambition of its founders, the brand has developed while remaining faithful to its values of quality and proximity, maintaining a strong attachment to its Francilian cradle. From now on, the group is leading a green revolution through its brand Land & Monkeys, whose commitments inspire the sector’s practices thanks to a greedy and federating approach.

For the young Rodolphe Landemaine, the bakery has not always been an obvious choice. It is by discovering, at 18 years old, the work of a craftsman friend of his father that he measures the potential of professions of taste. "I quickly understood that this field would allow me to cross the ages. Coming from a modest background, the bakery embodied at the time a tool for social emancipation, unlike today where digital seems to occupy this place," summarizes Rodolphe Landemaine, who emphasizes the importance of encounters in his journey as in the rest of life. The young man from Mayenne joins the Compagnons du Devoir, completes part of his tour de France and acquires the necessary dexterity to join prestigious houses. Having worked with Lucas Carton, Paul Bocuse or even Raynier-Marchetti, the youngster is thirsty for knowledge and already has a precise vision of his ambition. "I wanted to train for the job and then open my own business," he says. He concretized his project in 2007, by opening a shop with his wife Yoshimi at 54 rue de Clichy, in the heart of Paris: "The goal was to have an anchor point, with a laboratory adapted to develop."

A patronymic that became a brand ("lendemain" meaning "tomorrow" in French), before opening up to a strong commitment. The name Landemaine, which is on its way to becoming a brand, quickly spread, both in the 9th, 11th and 18th arrondissements. "This type of project remains complex to carry out: it is necessary to have the ability to respond to many unknowns, such as ways to preserve the same quality or recruit the right collaborators. We invest a lot in people, by training our teams," adds the entrepreneur. Focused on the Ile-de-France region and operated only in branches, Maison Landemaine is moving towards a "reasonable and ambitious" development, considering that the omnipresence of the brand in the sector would be counterproductive. With 19 boutiques in Paris and its immediate suburbs, the structure enjoys a solid foothold and good visibility.

This brand is no longer the only one that the group is growing. For almost five years, the one who describes himself as a "citizen entrepreneur" has chosen to align his values with his activity through Land & Monkeys. This "bakery with a positive impact" offers a 100% plant-based products, going against the current of French bakery traditions, where meat products hold a fundamental place. “Building a second sign was a natural choice. Not only was it not conceivable to destroy our roots and convert the entire network overnight, but we wish to propose plants without imposing them, which seems more elegant and ethical to me," defends Rodolphe.

The virtuous and inclusive bakery

The project is therefore oriented towards alternatives reconciling gluttony and vegetarianism, reworking great classics of bakery pastry with ingredients drastically reducing the environmental impact of preparations... without any compromise on taste. "This allows us to be one step ahead of the transformations of tomorrow. Not only are we trying to respond to the challenges of the time, such as the collapse of biodiversity or resource sharing, but we are drawing a virtuous model for the entire sector," continues the business leader, convinced that the evolution of prices for so-called conventional raw materials will eventually convert a growing number of players to plants. Unlike Maison Landemaine, the ambition is now national... even global: «From the start, I wanted to unite a community of partners sensitive to the approach, both for the ethical and economic aspect. Those who come to us see the potential of the project, which was particularly risky at its beginning. We are therefore developing the franchise brand in addition to the branches, with six openings planned in 2026 (Rennes, Marseille, Annecy, Lyon...) and the deployment internationally from the following year," he says.

This entrepreneurial success, already proven through 11 points of sale between Paris, Bordeaux and Aix-en-Provence is doubly put at the service of the nature: in addition to acting on the underlying subjects through product design, Land & Monkeys has among its shareholders an endowment fund, called Tomorrow on Earth, which supports associations but also buys back lands in order to sanctuarize them and regenerate ecosystems. "The company can be a tool to respond to the problems of today and tomorrow. She can have another face and take her responsibilities alongside the citizens. This is the model we are building at Maison Landemaine and Land & Monkeys", concludes this baker resolutely committed to the future and the nature.