We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Clemence Danko. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Clemence below.

Clemence, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you have any advice regarding quality control and maintaining quality as your brand grows?

Quality control is one of the essential challenge of our business, especially as we grew and had to manage bigger volume, and in particular within a high turnover industry, that we also suffer from. Of course things happen but since quality and authenticity are core values for our French bakery, it’s one of our priority. It’s about having the right resource dedicated to focus on quality control, and addressing issues as they arise to make sure they don’t happen again… day after day…

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Choc O Pain is an authentic French bakery and cafe located in Hoboken and Jersey City, NJ. We make everything from scratch, every day, with the least possible amount and most simple ingredients, just like we would do at home for our own family.
Our breads are made naturally with levain (sourdough), from a slow and long fermentation process, taking up to 48 hours, to ensure the best possible flavors and textures.
Our flaky croissants and other pastries, called viennoiseries in France (laminated dough) along with our delicious espresso based drinks will transport you to France for what we hope will be the most authentic experience!
Try our quiches, soupe du jour or sandwiches in our cafe for a “déjeuner à la Française” with our typical French atmosphere.
We also offer some options accommodating to some dietary restrictions with vegan as well a gluten free options (made in a non gluten free facility).
Finally trust us to cater your business meeting or family reunion for breakfast or lunch, we offer many options from packages to a la carte choices to make your experience unique and impress your guests!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like many businesses we had to close during the pandemic in early 2020, first for a few weeks but with very limited visibility on how long it would last, it was a very stressful few weeks of course, very lonely as well. Then after a couple of weeks, one of our Supervisors had the great idea of doing a freezer sale and offering our croissants and chocopains (chocolate croissants) frozen for our guests to bake at home, as everyone was spending so much time at home and exploring baking and cooking! We implemented the idea, by doing a pre sale, and a pick up day a few days later, it was a huge success! After that we added freshly baked breads, quiches, along the same principle, our guests had to pre order online first and once a week there was a pick up day in a different location each week (we had 4 at that time).
It proved to be a fantastic idea, a way to help pay the bills and a great way to connect with our guests, time flew by and then we reopened in June!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Before we opened the bakery, we had to go through so many ups and down, several times, finding a location, signing a lease even, spending time and money on it and then finding out it wouldn’t work for one reason or another… it was tough and discouraging of course, but now I know it was a learning experience and a way to be better prepared when the right location came up. It’s difficult to keep hope when things seems to be all falling apart but there is always a reason for it, and later in life, if you persevere and don’t abandon, you usually finally understand the reason why and see the better picture. It was true for me too and made me grow a lot in my entrepreneurial journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chocopainbakery.com
• Instagram: @chocopainbakery
• Facebook: Facebook.com/chocopainbakery
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/choc-o-pain/

Image Credits
Some Pictures are by Helene McGuire Photography @hmcguirephoto