In the time since Alain Coumont founded Le Pain Quotidien in Brussels in 1990, the bakery-café chain has amassed more than 10,000 recipes—many of which Coumont developed.
Now through the magic of artificial intelligence, software company November Five has harnessed the chef-founder’s culinary expertise into a tool called Alain.AI, creating what amounts to Coumont’s “digital twin.”
Alain.AI not only can access any of those 10,000 recipes, it can develop new recipes based on the brand’s culinary traditions, adapting them to local flavors, seasonal ingredients and dietary preferences.
Despite a bankruptcy filing in 2020 and the closure of many U.S. and U.K. locations during and after the pandemic, Belgium-based Le Pain Quotidien now counts 214 restaurants in 19 countries around the world. Alain.AI can ensure that a sandwich or breakfast plate in the Middle East and New York City are prepared and presented the same way, as the tool interprets various languages, units of measurement and local kitchen equipment.
“With Alain.AI, we combine tradition with cutting-edge technology to keep our offers fresh and exciting for our customers, now and in the years to come,” said the human Coumont in a statement.
Operators can access Le Pain Quotidien's library of recipes or ask Alain.AI to create a new recipe.
The tool provides three key capabilities:
• Menu Maker creates seasonal menus from the recipe catalog, complete with ingredient lists for purchasing and detailed step-by-step preparation guides.
• Experimental Kitchen develops and experiments with new, unpublished or uncompleted recipes.
• Recipe Creation Tool generates new recipes either from existing catalog data or from scratch, using instructions similar to ChatGPT.
Eventually, the goal is to incorporate consumer research data to support predictions. For instance, if consumer data indicates that Le Pain Quotidien customers prefer hummus in their sandwiches, the recipe generator will include it more frequently.
Aside from smoothing operations and enhancing creativity in the bakery-cafés, consumers will also be able to interact with Alain.AI. Soon, members of the Tartine Club—Le Pain Quotidien’s most loyal customers—will also have access to Chef Coumont’s digital twin to replicate the brand’s recipes at home.
The recipe for Salmon and Feta Tartine, generated by Alain.AI
“We are experiencing major growth from 15 to 19 countries after a difficult period, and five more countries will be added in the coming months,” said Annick Van Overstraeten, CEO of Le Pain Quotidien, in a statement. “We have recently signed [franchise] agreements for openings in Greece, Morocco, Luxembourg, Uruguay, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Peru, Congo and most recently India. Until now, we could only rely on existing commercial software and structured databases to manage our recipes. With Alain.AI, not only do we reduce the time of manually entering and translating everything, but we can also offer our chefs a digital smart assistant that thinks along in the creation process.
Aurify Brands operated the U.S. locations of Le Pain Quotidien until November, 2022, when the bakery-café was brought under the operating platform of Convive Brands. As of 2023, the chain counted 50 units in the States, with a majority located in New York.
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