Our Journey: Bringing Pão Francês to the United States

From the first time I visited Brazil, nearly 15 years ago, one of the things that immediately stood out was every bakery, market, cafe, and gas station sold loaves of bread that looked like large dinner rolls. Coming from the US, where we had sliced bread and few other options, it took many years for me to fully appreciate just how important pão francês is to daily life in Brazil.

A few trips back to Brazil and a pandemic later, while everyone else was baking sourdough in their kitchens, I decided to try my hand at a something that I hadn't been able to find in the US - this Brazilian pão francês found on every street corner. Not really knowing what I was doing, I stumbled through a random Youtube video, and call it beginner's luck, something halfway edible came out of the oven.

After sharing with friends and family and seeing their reactions, I began to realize a couple things. First, many Brazilians living in the US really miss pão francês, and second, many Americans would appreciate a decent bread that has a crisp and crunchy crust, but light and fluffy interior. We just don't have anything comparable that is widely available, even in most restaurants.

I immediately started thinking about the question "How could an authentic pão francês, with the cracked, crispy crust, large eyelash score, and light, airy crumb, be accessible to any Brazilian living in the US?". A few key challenges existed:

1. US Infrastructure: Access to bread, whether at a bakery or grocery store, is more than 10 mins away for most people. This makes purchasing fresh bread daily, like many do in Brazil, extremely inconvenient.
2. Pão Francês Shelf Life: Pão francês is baked multiple times a day in Brazil, because it begins to stale after only a few hours. Keeping fresh bread available for customers throughout the day is what keeps Brazilians coming back. Many know when their local bakery has fresh bread, and plan their day so they can stop by the bakery right as the bread comes out of the oven.
3. Bakery Logistics: Many US bakeries and groceries do most of their baking in the mornings, and then it sits out for sale the rest of the day. This means the product starts staling early in the morning and continues all day long.

So what were the options if a Brazilian American wanted authentic pão francês? They could bake their own, but pão francês requires steam to get the crunchy outer crust, so that was a complication for home bakers. They could buy an alternative, but the closest thing available was french dinner rolls or maybe Mexican bolillos, and those still weren't the same. If you were lucky, you might live near a Brazilian cafe that offers pão francês. The challenge there is the same inconvenience as driving to a grocery store every day to purchase bread, and that doesn't solve the problem for Brazilian Americans who don't live near a cafe. No good choices seemed to exist!

This lead to exploring frozen options. Brazilians were ahead of the US in adopting air fryers, and what if we could warm up a frozen pão francês in an air fryer in the same amount of time it would take to walk to a bakery in Brazil? After lots of experimentation, and some help from brave family and friends acting as taste testers 🤣, we managed to develop a unique recipe that stays fresh while shipping across the country, can be frozen when it arrives, and then can be warmed up in the oven or air fryer for 5-7 minutes!

With our pão francês, you can experience authentic, Brazilian pão francês in the convenience of your own kitchen, just like you would find at the local bakery in Brazil. Knowing that pão francês is a daily staple for many, we offer convenient quantities of 16 and 32 loaves, with options to subscribe, so you can enjoy it fresh on a daily basis all month long!