Strolling along the winding roads of Alpine villages or the bustling boulevards of Paris, everyone knows where to get a freshly baked pastry to go with a steaming hot café au lait in the morning.

“It’s easy to find bakeries around our houses in France,” noted Pascal Bossard, president and industrial director of Galaxy Desserts, Richmond, Calif. “If you want to eat a croissant, you just walk down the street and buy it. In the United States, there are some bakeries, but they are few and far between. That’s why our goal is to be the French bakery for the US consumer.”

For decades, Galaxy Desserts has been recognized for its croissants, mousse, tarts, petit fours and other elegant desserts found mostly in fine hotels and foodservice establishments. Inspired by Jean-Yves Charon, Galaxy Desserts’ co-founder, pastry chef and current foodservice sales director, the best-sellers include its signature Chocolate Grand Teton Mousse Cake, crème brulee and Crunchy Mocha Mousse Cake, which received the 2021 Gold sofi award for best baked goods and desserts from the Specialty Foods Association.

After being purchased by Brioche Pasquier in 2012, Galaxy Desserts became one of the first US bakeries to identify and jump on what became the brioche bandwagon with classic loaves, brioche croissants and pains au lait (milk rolls) all made with butter and a 21-day shelf life without preservatives.

The baked goods come in popular butter, chocolate, fruit and other flavors and are shipped from parent company Brioche Pasquier, based in France. In fact, Baking & Snack featured the company in 2014, noting that brioche had become the next big trend in the bread and roll categories.

Now Galaxy Desserts and Brioche Pasquier USA have launched a major initiative to broaden their French-inspired product portfolio and its presence throughout the retail channel with an array of packaged pastries, colorful macaron cookies and Brioche To Go! handheld treats.

Sold under the Brioche Pasquier brand, a universally recognized household name in France, the frozen, refrigerated and shelf-stable products are targeted for in-store bakeries, the snack aisle and freezer cases. Some products are also available for sale under private label store brands or in bulk for hotels, restaurants and other foodservice accounts.

“We want to have an option for every customer,” noted Julien Suignard, retail sales director. “Ten years ago, you only found macarons in specialty stores. Now you can find them everywhere. We’re trying to find the best fit for every retailer.”

Moreover, Galaxy Desserts is pushing its geographic reach nationally beyond its traditional core market out West.

“We want our brand to be everywhere people shop or live,” Mr. Suignard said. “What makes a difference is that we’re a French company that works with a great savoir faire from France and a great savoir faire here at Galaxy, and we are here in the US to adapt that savoir faire to the entire market.”

The ultimate goal, Mr. Bossard said, is to produce its authentic brioche and other baked goods in the 100,000-square-foot Richmond facility, where it currently has enough space to install three production lines.

“The strategy that we have for that is to send the product from France until we have the volume to produce the product in this country,” he explained. “If you want to be close to the consumer, and the US is a big country, we probably will need more than one bakery. The question is when? We don’t have the answer to that question at this time, but there is no doubt that we want to produce brioche in the US.”

This article is an excerpt from the November 2022 issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Galaxy Desserts, click here.