On 10 February 2021, Etilux went to Alleur to visit the head office of the point chaud group. We were welcomed by Aurore Somja, the group’s marketing manager. This was an opportunity for us to discover the inner workings of this well-known brand in Wallonia!

The point chaud adventure began in 1980, in France, when Yannick Morizot, a French baker, created point chaud France. The idea was to offer fresh and warm bread throughout the day. Thirteen years later, in 1993, Didier Depreay, the current director of the group, decided to launch point chaud in Belgium. Since then, the company has continued to grow and point chaud now has more than 50 outlets in Belgium.

Despite its success, point chaud has retained the essence of an ‘SME’, as well as its artisanal production! Indeed, the branded has developed its own production workshops, which are located in Liège, and handles the logistics for fresh products: the products are produced during the day and delivered to the shops at night, every day, to ensure their freshness.

We had the opportunity to visit the workshops and discovered a very pleasant working environment and a very impressive production workshop!

Continuous innovation

In order to retain its spirit of continuous innovation, a ‘product committee’ is organised every quarter (except during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic). The purpose of this committee is to select new products to include in the range, by taking market trends into account. This committee brings together various employees from the group – from the outlet manager to the purchasing manager – in order to make decisions that consider every aspect of the product’s marketing.

Each product launch is preceded by a committee. It was following one of these committees that Aurore called on Etilux to produce labels for a product that had never been sold by point chaud before: chocolate bars.

This new product is the work of Lucile Boulic, a production manager at point chaud, to whom the brand is indebted! Passionate about pastry and, more particularly, chocolate, Lucile had the idea of offering a different product. ‘It is gratifying to be able to contribute your ideas and to feel listened to; it makes you want to keep improving,’ says Lucile. Thanks to her experience in chocolate making, the manager was able to get involved and directly contribute to the project from start to finish.

The chocolates went on sale at the beginning of November, so this is a brand-new project that we invite you to discover in all of the brand’s outlets! You can choose between milk chocolate or dark chocolate, both of which have delicious hazelnut chips. Spoiler alert: a new chocolate should arrive in time for Easter!

A label for chocolate bars

Point chaud has teamed up with long-time partner Etilux to offer a chocolate bar in a neat package! ‘We worked closely together to choose and design the most suitable label for their project,’ explains Fabian Troisfontaines, Etilux’ sales manager for the Liège area. ‘Point chaud produced precise specifications, so they needed customised labels to decorate the chocolate boxes.‘

‘In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, the label had to be strong enough to seal the plastic packaging, but also easily opened by the consumer and large enough to display all the legal information on the bar,’ adds Fabian Troisfontaines. Since the chocolate bars have to be stored in a cool place and handled by different operators, our label had to be strong enough to withstand all this handling, while still enticing the customer to buy it.

Point chaud and Etilux: a long-standing collaboration

The collaboration between the two companies started ten years ago.  Initially, Etilux supplied simple and standard labels. These labels were used to provide the customer with information, such as the use-by date or the batch number.

Later, point chaud needed more specific and personalised products, within the framework of organising its logistics. As a result, an initial printer was ordered, then a second, then a third, etc., until the chocolate bar project came along.

It is quite natural that point chaud turned to Etilux to manufacture these printed labels with a real added value. Point chaud and Etilux have been working together faithfully and fruitfully for many years – a beautiful collaboration in Liège!

The solutions proposed by Etilux