Posted9 July 2022, 08:00
ESCH-SUR-ALZETTE – Financial controller, Simon Loutid decided a year ago to change his life to start pastry in Luxembourg. And the recipe took quite well. Meet.
Having a real oven at home, we do not suspect it, but it can change a life! Talk to Simon Loutid. This 29-year-old Frenchman had a destiny all mapped out: a business school diploma obtained in Paris, then a post of financial controller at the University of Luxembourg. Except that between the two, he left to live for a few months in Turin, in Italy, for a voluntary work and it was there that he had a click. “Unlike my small studios until then, this time I had an oven in my apartment,” says the young man, who then begins to have fun in the kitchen.
“I first tested the macaroons, I brought them to work. Then I made new recipes…» A real passion that reminded him of his young years, behind the stove with his mother. The Italian mission was not yet over when he even decided to pass, and obtain, his pastry CAP as a free candidate in France. “I didn’t have an idea in mind at the time,” explains Simon. Moreover, it is September 2020, and a few days later he begins his contract in finance at the University of Luxembourg.
Working with workers with disabilities
“I continued to make pastry and to make my colleagues taste it”. In the evening, on weekends, Simon Loutid begins to imagine a name for a possible future small business. He is even thinking regarding packaging and launching in… June 2021. Simon puts his salaried activity on hold to develop in the Grand Duchy Simon the Financier, his little pastry shop which very quickly becomes much more than a personal achievement. The young man, who has set up his office in Esch-sur-Alzette, does tests, draws up technical sheets to develop his cookies, chocolate cake and financiers.
He then approached a professional integration workshop of the HMC League in Capellen, where people with disabilities produce the cakes. For packaging and assembly, he turned to the Kraizberg workshops in the same way. Simon and his company therefore already give activity to more than fifteen people today. “It’s not outsourcing, I’m with them. It’s a lot of things to manage, to synchronize, almost 24 hours a day”, underlines the young entrepreneur.
The products are purchased in short circuit in Luxembourg, are 100% natural and the cakes are sold online or in several points of sale on the Luxembourg market. In April, Simon and his teams honored “209 pre-orders, 70 kg of cakes!” Simon Loutid has “no regrets” to have abandoned his suit in finance. Future new products, organization of events… he teems with projects and ambitions for his small company, born without knowing it in the intimacy of a small apartment in Turin.
