For Admission
Apollonia Poilâne (1984) is the third generation to run the bakery founded in 1932 by her grandfather in the Saint
Germaine-des-Pres district of Paris, and developed both in France and internationally by her father Lionel
Poilâne.
Cradled in a bread basket by the passion that her father vowed to his craft, Apollonia naturally chose her path.
She feeds her own passion by learning and working in the bakery on the Rue du Cherche-Midi, where her
father also learned his trade.
Following the accidental death of Ibu and Lionel Poilâne in 2002, Apollonia and Athena ensure the continuity of
the family business.
From 2003 to 2007, Apollonia presided over the company while studying economics in Boston. Organizing
regular exchanges with her teams, phone calls, emails, video conferencing, and frequent trips between Boston
and Paris enabled her to work full-time overseeing her managers.
Apollonia fully adheres to her father’s philosophy: favor quality over quantity. She is also a worthy successor to
the « retro-innovation » culture dear to Lionel Poilâne: take the best of the past and combine it with the best of
the present. Apollonia has not changed the manufacturing methods. More than 85 years after the founding of
the bakery, Poilâne ® breads are always leavened, handmade and baked over a wood fire.
At the same time, Apollonia is resolutely turned towards the future.
Since she took the business over, Apollonia opened 2 more boutiques in Paris (the Buttes-Chaumont bakery
opened in Nov 2017), a second UK address in Chelsea London, and the first Poilâne bakery in Antwerp, mid
2016. The introduction of new products (a gingerbread, small spoon shaped cookies, granola, a Pepper Loaf,
buns, Yule logs, cornbread, buckwheat biscuits…), and the development of the dealer network, in France and
abroad, testify to the will of Apollonia to move forward and pass the family business one day to a 4th
generation Poilâne.
