Main products: Biscuits manufacturer of typical belgian recipes: waffles, speculoos and other biscuits
Highlight of their unique approach
Artisanal production of biscuits, active locally and starting to source their ingredients from regenerative agricultural practices.
Highlight of their unique design
Family owned business with a new vision; creating their own ecosystem in order to adopt more regenerative practices.
A Maison Dandoy shop in Belgium
02 | Founding story
Maison Dandoy has a turnover of 12 millions euros. It has been a family business for 7 generations. Founded in 1829, the company is now run by Alexandre Helson and his brother Antoine Helson.
Maison Dandoy is a famous brand producing the typical Belgian recipes of speculoos, waffles and other biscuits. It is known internationally mainly thanks to the tourists visiting the centre of Brussels and enjoying some typical local pleasures. In addition to being emblematic of the cultural heritage of the city of Brussels, Dandoy produces its biscuits by hand, supplies 13 of its own boutiques and creates a total of 100 jobs in the capital. Their production site has always been in the heart of Brussels, rue au Beurre, close to the world famous Grand Place. It has recently moved away from the city centre to another area of Brussels which is easily accessible by public transport.
The pride of the organisation is that it is still 100% family-owned, which gives them a great deal of freedom. To maintain this family ownership, Antoine and Alexandre have recently bought out the shares of a branch of the family to prevent them going to outside shareholders.
Their vision: to become an example of a regenerative business, while offering a product that gives pleasure and is accessible.
Owners of Maison Dandoy
03 | Industry Context
The biscuit manufacturing sector plays an important role in the Belgian economy, both in terms of production and exports. Indeed, the value generated by this sector represents a significant part of the country's food industry, contributing between 10% and 15% of total production. Belgian biscuits also enjoy great popularity internationally, making this sector an essential component of Belgian food exports. These exports represent a significant portion of the country's export earnings in the food sector, underlining the economic importance of this traditional and renowned industry.
Many companies of varying sizes operate in this sector, from small artisanal bakeries to large multinationals. In this highly competitive market, Maison Dandoy is a small but recognized actor. What sets Dandoy apart from its competitors (such as Lotus Bakeries, Delacre or Jules Destrooper) is the artisanal production and selling in its own shops, thereby avoiding the pressure of mainstream retailers.
04 | Regenerative & Distributive Strategies and Actions
The first unique aspect of Dandoy is its artisanal production, which leads to additional costs, but allows them to employ a non-qualified workforce. There is however a big financial tension to keep this artisanal production while other additional costs arise with the pursuit of more regenerative practices.
A second element that is quite unique in Dandoy is their focus on local production and distribution. Everything is made and sold in Brussels mainly or in Belgium via their e-shop. Dandoy recently stopped exporting to Japan as it was not in line with their vision. If it were to expand to international markets, they would do so by recreating local structures, jobs and know-how instead of incurring a high carbon footprint from shipping their products.
The COVID crisis generated a lot of internal reflection at Dandoy. All activities were at a standstill and they were in a difficult financial situation. They began to ask themselves the deep question of ‘why are we pursuing those activities?’ The two founders started to gain interest and became aware of their responsibility, as biscuits manufacturers, to act at their level for more virtuous practices so that ‘making biscuits’ could be combined with ‘doing good’. The company exists for almost 200 years, their reflection led to a long term vision for the 200 years to come that was translated into a Manifesto. In order to start this transition journey, Dandoy invests heavily in networks to drive change across the supply chain and industry. Their networks include :
2030, a CEO network for leaders willing to be informed, exchange and act to reinvent the business that is fit for tomorrow.
Kaya Coalition, a network of ecopreneurs inspiring, gathering and lobbying for its members
Farm for good & The House of Agroecology supporting in raising awareness on regenerative agricultural practices, recreating new local supply chains with producers having organic and regenerative practices in Belgium.
One example of achievement, in collaboration with Farm for good is the sourcing of all their flour from a Belgian producer that meets the technical specifications created by Farm for good in order to adopt organic and regenerative agricultural practises. On top of the organic certification, the regenerative aspects will enable the producer to regenerate their soils, protect and recreate biodiversity as well as adopt agro-ecological methods. Commercially, Maison Dandoy had to agree on the conditions set by the cooperative Farm for good that engages Dandoy to buy a certain volume per year at a certain price to the miller. Farm for good plays an intermediary role between the producers and the industry by setting the rules for both agricultural practises and trading conditions. This price is 50% higher than the market price, but it gives a fair return to each actor of the supply chain which is essential to build a long term relationship based on trust. It is certainly an investment on short term, but it enables to move away from the market speculations and gain in resilience on the long term.
Flour was the first ingredient to tackle as it represents 50% of the weight of a product, but this is just a start and the ambition is to continue with all the other ingredients. The organic and regenerative sourcing of ingredients leads to additional costs which is in most cases reflected in the consumer price. However, there is a clear tension here in order to stay accessible while offering the best product for the people and the planet.
05 | How Deep Design Enables Strategy and Action
One core element of their design enabling these actions is on ownership that has been retained in family-control for 7 generations, which has required a buy-out of some shares to avoid them being sold outside the family. This type of ownership allows them to keep their ambition high and work on their long term vision without being pressured by short term financial return. Their choice to source organic and regenerative ingredients is putting pressure on their margins but they accept to look at their return on investment in the longer term. In the meantime, they luckily get some public funding from the Brussels Region that encourages businesses that show good practices on environmental and social level. Moreover, they also look at their internal practices to reduce other costs (reduce waste, lean management in the production, recruit young talents, etc.) in order to absorb those additional costs of the ingredients.
On top of that Maison Dandoy has recently put in place a Regeneration Committee alongside the Board of Directors with representation from a broad set of stakeholders to represent the mission of the company, future generations, nature, commons and social issues. The purpose of this is to represent the issues of these stakeholders so that the company can be accountable on all these subjects. A spirit of goodwill is the rule. This structure is very recent, and the question now is to see how it can have a real place and real value in supporting the Board of Directors and guiding future decisions to keep the course set by their Manifesto. One example of action taken since the existence of this committee was an employee survey in order to assess the satisfaction of employees and their recommendation for future actions. This new governance body has been created in partnership with Corporate Regeneration who supports businesses in bringing other voices in the decision making process of businesses.
Finally, one aspect that Maison Dandoy would like to further explore in the future are the new models for value distribution and the possibility of steward and employee ownership. This concept of value distribution with all actors who have co-created it makes sense to them but still needs to be further discussed and agreed within the family.
06 | Reflections and Lessons for other Businesses
Doing business by ‘doing good’ is possible but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. It requires to get trained on many different challenges, it requires to make a full diagnosis of the business practices, to prioritise and structure the work to be done and finally it requires to act one step at a time, adapt the design if needed and invest in innovations where needed.
Maison Dandoy is part of the pioneers now leading the way. But being first requires courage and persistence in a system that does not recognize yet those efforts. Such social and environmental investments must in the near future be recognized and valued in a company’s accountability. So that businesses could navigate in a system where socially just and environmentally safe practices are rewarded instead of being held back. Meanwhile, we don’t have the time to wait for the system to change. We can just applaus the businesses being innovative and adopting new distributive and regenerative practices who will become an inspiration for others and step by step create a broader community of businesses showing that the economy can be at the service of society and our living planet.
One challenge for Maison Dandoy in the near future will be to see how they will continue their journey to become a ‘regenerative business’ while offering products at an acceptable price? What compromises will they have to make internally and how can their new Regeneration Committee become a strong supportive structure for the trade-offs to be made and future decisions to take?
This case study was researched and written by Barbara Goffin of Confluences in collaboration with DEAL.
