Gridnev Biography

Alexei Gridnev tells the story of the Gridnev-Khleb brand. The stories of Don entrepreneurs ” - this is the name of the large joint project of the journal“ Nation ”, the Rostov Regional Agency for Support for Entrepreneurship RRAPP and the Center“ My Business ”. Its heroes will become 25 companies - the leaders of their industries, which are well known outside the Rostov region.

For the mass reader, our project will turn, we hope, into a fascinating series. And novice entrepreneurs will be able to find ideas and advice here for themselves. The hero of this release is the founder and owner of the Gridnev-Khleb bakers Alexei Gridnev. But not so often, because Gridnev is a fairly common surname on the Don. It's funny, we even work with the supplier of flour, individual entrepreneur Alexander Gridnev, who is not my relative, as many could think.

But at first she, as far as I know, did not wear your name. In what year did the brand be called "Gridnev-Khleb"? And most importantly, why? Then I hired a branded agency that helped me develop a marketing strategy, and also proposed many options for the name. I decided to stay on the family brand. In my opinion, people have more trust in such a brand, he implies the readiness of the entrepreneur to bear personal responsibility for his product.

Alexey Gridnev. Why was this university chosen then? I saw this direction interesting, promising. When I acted, I still thought that I would work on the railway. I started studying in the year. In the country - a transition period, there were still no legal entrepreneurs, but there was a commodity deficit, many products were sold by coupons, and no one knew what was waiting for us ahead.

I understood that it was necessary to get such an education that would give some support in the future. What if the country had not become on capitalist rails, if we had not developed entrepreneurship? I do not exclude that I would work today on the railway in my specialty. In any case, the higher education, as they say, “pumped”, put my brains in order, so I do not think that I studied at the institute in vain.

How did you come to bread? Just a free niche or something more? Often I went to Europe and tried there truly delicious bread. And when he returned to his native Rostov, he felt a sharp difference: I don’t know for what reasons, but the quality of the bread that our plants produced was getting worse and worse. Probably, this happened because bread is a socially significant product, prices for it are regulated by the state, and bakery kept the price by reducing quality and taste.

But this should not be. It’s not for nothing that they say that bread is the head. In general, the product that was in our city categorically did not suit me, and I had the idea: why not start feeding the Rostovites with real, high -quality bread? Moreover, craft bakers were already in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and there was not a single one in our city. At the start, many told me, they say, it is unprofitable, the industry is unprofitable, the craft bread is too expensive, and no one will buy it.

Everyone dissuaded, but this did not stop me. As you can see, I was right. Are the Germans the best in this matter? Unfortunately, in Russia, bakery traditions have only recently begun to revive, many recipes and technologies have been forgotten, frames shortage at factories. The industry rises from scratch. By the way, when we were just starting, few had an idea of ​​what bread is on the sourdough.

The Germans did not waste their traditions, they are well versed in bread, very meticulous to its quality, and they have something to learn. This is true? What can be taught for so long, after all, this is not surgery, for example? And in order to get it, you need to unlearn and work in the industry for at least 7 years. So they have a serious attitude to this matter. As for the Academy itself, this is not the case when you constantly go to classes, as in an ordinary institute.

The first year they teach the theory, then gradually enter the workflow, become apprentices, gain experience ... I think your hero meant. Very tasty bread. But not everywhere in Italy they make the right Chiabatt. Just as in Russia, not everyone bakes the right loaf. Nowhere are there so many loaves as in our country. In general, according to my observations, truly diverse and tasty bread is baked in the northern countries of Europe.

In the south, they mainly consume wheat bread, and the north the north, the more popular rye, which, in my opinion, are more useful and at the same time more satisfying. By the way, very high quality bread is made in Belarus. This is where they also carefully retained their baking traditions. For the first two years we suffered losses. There was no cash gap, just at the initial stage all the time had to report money in the project.

As far as I remember now, the loss was 3.5 million rubles. They survived a difficult period, after that they went out to zero, and then went up.

Others would probably have surrendered.And we successfully came out of this situation thanks to perseverance and perseverance. In one of the Rostov Cafe-Beach Caran "Gridnev-Khleb". Photo: Ekaterina Kolesnikova-"Gridnev-Khleb" in the year-what is these in numbers and facts? We bake about 20 tons of products per day. But we also cooperate with retail chains, so our bread can also be bought in Volgograd, Astrakhan and the Stavropol Territory.

The profit of all points is different. We do not necessarily place them in the central streets, in places with large pedestrian traffic. For example, we can open in a housing complex, where there are many residents. How do you control the products and the franchise service: “Secret Buyers”, something else? But at the same time, you need to understand that we are looking for real entrepreneurs who themselves will manage a baker, not investors.

Initially, a potential partner must go training - the path from the seller to the manager. We have our own inspection service, we go and check for a secret buyers without any “secret buyers”. If we see that the entrepreneur does not cope with the management well, the bakery is degrading, and the revenue is steadily reduced, we can tell the partner: either you correct everything, or terminate the contract.

Where did you find them? I attended master classes, practiced in craft bakeries in the same Germany. Much in terms of experience and recipes was given by the already mentioned Belarus. We recently released another novelty - Belarusian custard bread in the sourdough. People like it, they buy it with pleasure, sales are growing. A very cool school of bakery in the Baltic countries: I don’t know how things are with bakery, but they have very interesting craft projects.

Recipes of such breads as “Riga” and “Lithuanian”, I took, of course, from the Baltic states. There is also such an enthusiast Maxim Esklin, a collector of old Russian recipes and traditions, he can also be gleaned a lot of interesting things. He generally bakes bread in a real Russian stove. This, of course, is very time -consuming: there are modern stoves of European manufacturers who give the result no worse, and they do not need to be drowned with firewood.

In general, I collected recipes in a variety of places by bit. The assortment is based on natural fermenting bread, real French, German, Italian varieties. And, of course, our Russian bread like Borodinsky, prepared according to GOST, when he was baked at the sourdough, without adding bakery yeast. Our idea is precisely to produce a nonsense, with a low glycemic index of whole -grain flour bread, so that it has more trace elements and vitamins.

Are there any recipes that you came up with? But I will stop, perhaps, at a hundred percent rye bread. We generally try to accustom people to rye bread, since it is genetically closer to the Slavs, rye is absorbed by us better than wheat. And in the wheat there is too much gluten, which is enough in modern products and without it; It is sometimes difficult for the body to cope with it.

And this one hundred percent rye bread is, by the way, my invention. When I presented him to the court of specialists of the Research Institute of Bakery Industry in Moscow, they were bewildered: the recipe was non -classical, it seemed very strange to them. I think that the cooks that came up with unusual combinations of products came across the same reaction, and their dishes contrary to expectations were suddenly “fired”.

Because not according to the template - it does not mean that it is tasteless. People liked my bread, they vote for it with a ruble. I love our new Belarusian bread, which I have already said. Just try it, we have one of the most popular. And also very useful.