24 POLITICS & BUSINESS THE BULLETIN

In 1829, before Belgium even existed, baker Jean-Baptiste Dandoy opened a shop selling biscottes, in the Rue du Marché-aux-Herbes in Brussels. Nearly 200 years later, his business has moved a

bare few hundred yards and it’s still thriving: having weathered two world wars and the Great Depression, our current economic travails don’t much impress the biscuit-makers by royal ap-pointment. Their biscottes – hard rusks, which allowed the company to survive rationing in World War Two, when there was a ban on patisserie – have now been consigned to a single shelf, but tradition is still at the core of this family-owned and run biscuit empire.

-le’, at 31 Rue au Beurre, a tall, 17th-century

-ing the best, or possibly the worst, possible week of the year, at the end of November. The company generates 30 percent of its annual turnover in the run-up to Saint-Nicolas (December 6) and Christmas with its signature giant Saint-Nicolas biscuits, and the atmosphere in the packed boutique is frenetic. Tourists linger over the ancient wooden speculoos moulds in the narrow, butter and spice-scented shop, while regu-lar customers dictate lengthy orders to the saleswomen. The door to the cramped rear workshop – where until 1970, the company also baked its whole range of biscuits, marzipan and loaf cakes – is open and Bernard Helson, a Dandoy by marriage and managing director of the company, is helping transport crates of speculoos and pain à la grècque out for delivery. One of the saleswomen is sulkily

refusing to have her photograph taken and seven dif-ferent conversations are going on at once.

In the midst of it all, Christine Rombouts, one of the sixth generation of the Dandoy family to take the reins of the family business, is gamely holding a speculoos Saint-Nicolas the size of an eight-year-old child in one

hand and a heavy wooden mould in the other for our photographer. As she poses, she’s si-multaneously soothing the fractious mood behind the till, and explaining the origins of pain à la grècque to me, all with a warmth and calm that speak of a lifetime in the biscuit business.

In fact, her composure only wobbles when I ask her which biscuits are her favourites: she looks stricken, like a parent asked which of their children they prefer.

“It’s so hard ... there are the new ones,” she

“And I love these chocolate-dipped langues de chat with chocolate from Molitor. But I suppose it would have to be one of the really traditional ones, the classic speculoos, maybe.”

Above the shop, in its ancient tim-bered offices, walls lined with portraits of the five preceding generations of Dandoys, Hel-

son and general manager Serge Laeuffer

shake their heads, wounded that I should force them to play favourites.

“Hmm.” Helson makes a pained face. “I suppose maybe the pain d’amande

The Brand: Dandoy

DANDOY IN BRIEFFOUNDED1829SPECULOOS3 tonnes produced each weekOUTLETS8Beurre, Buls, Brugmann, Saint-Job, Rollebeek, Stockel, Waterloo, WoluwePERMANENT EMPLOYEES40BIGGEST SELLERSSpeculoos and pain à la grècque (name derived from the bastardisation of the Dutch word for moat, ‘gracht’, as in Wolvengracht/Rue du Fossé aux loups, where Augustine monks used to distribute bread to beggars.)

Speculoos is coming to townFor biscuit-makers Dandoy, Christmas is a frenetic time. Fighting our way through a sea of gingerbread cookies, we make it into company HQ to talk tea rooms and Tokyoby emma beddington photos by dieter telemans

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25 POLITICS & BUSINESS DECEMBER 16 2011 - JANUARY 12 2012

it’s a good, well-made biscuit” and the two – a genial double act – talk about the challenges, and opportuni-ties, of running a 19th-century business in 2011. They are both crystal clear on the secrets of Dandoy’s continued success: family ownership, craftsmanship, respect for tradition.

The company’s strategy has always been one of very careful expansion, with a closer eye on maintaining quality than on margins. “We’ve been here in this building since 1858 and we only started to expand fairly recently, in 1984, with a second shop on the other side

room in 1995. Now, with our new outlet in Woluwe, we’ve reached eight shops and I don’t think we want to open more.”

Bapproach to growth has only been possible because of the independence family owner-ship allows.

“A company that doesn’t have to answer to sharehold-ers, to banks, that isn’t dependent on a few big clients, is a company that can survive, and thrive, without selling its soul to the devil,” says Laeuffer.

Now, though, huge changes are afoot in the house

in Waterloo, Helson and Laeuffer have their sights set on something entirely different, and seemingly risky: a concept store and tea room in Tokyo station, of all places, on course to open next September. But why Japan?

Laeuffer explains: “We’ve always had international demand. Actually, we often say we’re better known outside Europe than in Ghent or Namur, but we didn’t have the resources to respond to it. This Tokyo project

Christine Rombouts, one of the sixth generation to take the helm of this family-run baking empire

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26 POLITICS & BUSINESS THE BULLETIN

will be a great test for us, because Japanese consumers are extremely demanding. They really appreciate the values we try to promote such as history and artisanal production methods.”

In the Dandoy tearoom, a quick hop across the

60 to 70 percent of customers are Japanese. It was from the success of the tea room – which serves ice-creams,

born and it is this concept they hope to export. Helson laughs wryly. “I never much liked the tea room, it was

told him I wanted to close it down but he said that if I did, he’d quit. I admit, he opened my eyes to its potential.”

Laeuffer nods. “We both love Japan, our phi-losophy has a lot in common with theirs. If we can succeed there, I think we can do really great things in other places. There

are two other potential projects in the pipeline, one in Europe and one outside, but it’s early days.”

But back in Belgium, what will this mean for the company? Their current and only production workshop, a few hundred yards from the shop, is already running at maximum capacity with only 18 bakers and a new oven to tide them over. Helson concedes they need a new space, and fast. The search for larger premises is on, but he’s adamant they will not be going mass-market.

“Whatever we do, we won’t change our methods,

foundation of our philosophy: everything is handmade. We’ll employ more people, but to work in the same way we always have. And in the current climate, that’s a very good thing, surely.”

company: biscuits, it seems, are recession-proof. Helson shrugs. “We’re a niche product, and one that remains accessible in terms of pricing. We don’t raise our prices two or three times a year like some companies.”

says Laeuffer. “But we try to stay affordable. And with Dandoy, you aren’t paying over the odds for a whole marketing and export strategy, which you are with a lot of major chocolate brands.”

“We’re incredibly lucky. We don’t really have many competitors who offer our kind of handmade product. And people do still like to treat themselves, especially now.” Helson gestures towards the Christmas market outside.

This, I think, is a hint to let them get back to their Christmas and Saint-Nicolas preparations. The

giant saints from their wooden moulds and they need to be collected. The phone has rung off the hook through-out our chat and the team – two of whom have been with the company for 40 years, says Helson proudly – need them back.

working right alongside the team. You rarely see that these days.”

“We’re incredibly lucky. We don’t really have many competitors who offer our kind of handmade product. And people do still like to treat themselves, especially now”

Dandoy has been making biscuits in the heart of Brussels since 1829

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27 POLITICS & BUSINESS DECEMBER 16 2011 - JANUARY 12 2012

DIGITALBookmarks

#BelgovEuphoria and scepticism dotted the tweets of many Belgians after negotiators finally settled on an agreement.

#NWOWThe New World of Work Coalition, a group of Belgian companies who advocate a more f lexible way of working.

snapshots from the TwitterverseTrending

GAMING

Star Wars game aims at World of Warcraft crowd

After more than four years of development, video game company Bioware (a subsidiary of gaming

Star Wars: The Old Republicgame, in which thousands, if not millions, of people potentially play together in mass storytelling events. It’s a tough gaming genre to break into, as it’s largely dominated by the bestselling title World of Warcraft and its 10 million-plus monthly subscribers. But the subscriber base of World of Warcraft is declining, and Bioware feels strengthened by the force of the Star Wars brand.

TELECOMS

Fixed telephone lines are on the verge of extinction, as more and more people use their mobile phones

worlds with its ThinkLink S8881B. This device doubles as a docking station

for your mobile phone, and connects through Bluetooth to a wireless

your contacts and merging your mobile and landline calls. The ThinkLink is available for €149. www.philips.be

Our web favourites this fortnight

Don’t miss out on your traditional British products with the web shop of this Tervuren-based importer of hundreds of brands, from Ja!a Cakes to Yorkshire Tea. Larger orders inside Belgium are delivered for free.

This interesting worldwide art project inspires children from all over the globe to contribute their art to the site, where it’s sold in calendars, stamps and a book.

Insight into EU matters, with an emphasis on opinion through its blogs. It also covers EU foreign a!airs and exam-ines lesser-known issues in Europe via an investiga-tive journalism

programme started last

month.

by Ronald Meeus

INTERNET

Google Street View meets with controversy

Since Google introduced its Street View in Belgium in November, offering satellite imagery that zooms right down to the street level of your home, many Belgians have

Commission, an independent govern-ment agency residing under the federal

Belgian citizens who didn’t like having their home depicted online. Google says anyone can complain about an image by clicking the link below the site.

MOBILE

Customer does the selling at Mobile Vikings

Although it delivers voice and data connec-tions over the network of mobile operator Base, Hasselt-based Mobile Vikings is swiftly turning into Belgium’s fourth mobile phone brand. It got that job done by being innovative in its product portfolio

-ing heavily in its community. Most Mobile Vikings users are also fans of the brand: more than 60 percent of all new clients come in after a referral by an existing client. Mobile Vikings expanded its user base to 50,000 people in just a few years, with a modest advertising budget and no sales team. Who needs salespeople when you have a thriving community?

FRAUD

Cybercrime plagues Belgian companies

Internet crime has become one of the top three techniques of economic fraud plaguing Belgian companies, according

-WaterhouseCoopers. More than a third of Belgian companies have been the victim of economic crime, and internet fraud was involved in 44 percent of those cases. Two

largely negligible.

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