We were lucky to catch up with Stéphanie Kremer Larrandabure recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Stéphanie, thanks for joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

When I started baking, for my family first, I started dreaming about going to the next step and having my own business about bread and croissants.
I heard about Cottage Food Operation and started to follow the business creation steps.

Being proud of where I am from, I wanted to have a name that shares my French heritage, roots, culture, but also that was easy to pronounce in English.
As my bakery is a small business, it came to me to call it “Ma Petite Boulangerie” that means “My Little Bakery” in French. However, as the French word for Bakery is difficult to pronounce in English, I mixed both languages and made it to “Ma Petite Bakery”.

After a long journey and during the pandemic, I created y small business and since April 2021, I am the founder and baker of Ma Petite Bakery, Home based baking company located in Middlebury, Connecticut.

Stéphanie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born and raised in France from a simple workers family. I was the first one from the family who graduated from high school and went to college. I wanted to be a teacher and after many years of hard work at college and working on the side te help my parents to pay my studies, I became a Preschool and Elementary teacher and also preschool principal.

My familie moved from France to the Philippines in 2011 due to a job opportunity that my husband got.

Passionate about food and interested in cooking, I completed courses in culinary arts and bread baking in the Philippines.
My family moved again due to my husband’s professional transfer and arrived in Connecticut in February 2020. In Southbury first, and in Middlebury since August 2022. Always willing to share my culture and love for cooking, I decided to do so through food and bread baking and started baking my own bread after moving to CT.

I offer 4 types of baguettes, gourmet croissants and pains au chocolat, madeleines and brioches. Only French goods, using high quality ingredients, I bake in small batch, on order only, I privilege quality over quantity.

A Cottage Food Business allows you to work and sell from your home. There are pros and cons.
The pros are that I have a licensed issued by State of CT to product my baked goods without having a commercial kitchen. I have the freedom to choose my baking days and time and I have no rent or extra charges to pay. I can also do Pop Up Shops and this exposure in different kinds of stores is a great support.
The cons are that there are a lot of restrictions, I can not sell to restaurants, stores, do retail, I cannot sell to companies, only to individuals and families. I only can sell ready to go products that don’t need to be refrigarated so the menu options are limited. and being known without having a brick and mortar store makes that potential customers are sometimes shy to order and come to pick up at my home.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Originally from France, I moved to the Philippines with my family in 2011 to support my husband’s work.

Being a mom of 4 and living overseas, life pushed me to reinvent my professional outlook.
I was a working mom: Preschool-Elementary teacher and principal in France, By following my husband, in an eyeblink I became the wife of and the mom of in an foreign country at the other side of the world.
Being hard worker, I learned and became resilient and I adjusted to this new life, I became French as foreign language teacher and co wrote a documentary book about the Philippines published in 2015.
I also had the opportunity to work as restaurant manager, spin instructor and lately became an entrepreneur of Home Décor items created from recycled glass bottles!

After we moved from the Philippines to the USA in February 2020, I had to go back again with a new change in my professional life, learning how to live in a new country and a new culture, making sure ma family would adjust again.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I come with the “full package”: I was born and raised in France, I’ve been trained in culinary arts and bread baking, and I also learned by myself how to offer high quality products, I love meeting people, customers and sharing my story and I cannot deny my French accent. This French touch is a plus for marketing and proves my customers they are going to have an authentic experience of a taste of France.
Most of my customers are Americans who travelled and have been to France, French or French speakers.

The best compliments I heard are when someone tells me they have been to France on holiday, had some croissants there and mine are bringing them back to this experience of French food.
One day, an old lady who studied in France decades ago got some pains au chocolat that her daugther bought to me. My customer told me her mom felt she was back as a college student in France when she had a bite of the pain au chocolat.
Bringing back memories, making people to discover French bread and pastries is so grateful. I love sharing all of these.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hotplate.com/mapetitebakery
• Instagram: mapetitebakeryct
• Facebook: Ma Petite Bakery

Image Credits
The Studio Arcane, Southbury CT