Xevi and Marc de Triticum
The artisan loaves made by Xevi Ramon and Marc Martí can be found on the tables of some of the finest restaurants in Spain. Ferrán Adrià, Joan Roca, Paco Pérez and Ángel León are just a few of the top chefs who trust in Triticum. Patience, expertise and, above all, great passion are the ingredients with which Triticum works to “re-evaluate bread” in the twenty-first century. We interviewed the founders of the “haute cuisine bakery”: Xevi Ramon and Marc Martí, who were exhibitors at the second ‘We Are Facefood’ Ibiza event.
Matcha tea and orange brioche
How did Triticum start, and how has it evolved?
Triticum began as an attempt to resolve a problem for the gourmet cuisine sector. We wanted to start a new wave where baking was concerned. We wanted to break new ground at a time when gourmet cuisine was on the rise, and we felt there was something missing from the table. Over the past few years, we have endeavoured to develop the product technically, in order to satisfy the demand for innovation in gourmet cuisine.
What can be better than bread?
Bread from Triticum is better than bread. We try to give added value to bread because we think it is the forgotten hero at the table. The time has come for bakers (large concerns and small businesses alike) to give back to bread something of what it has given us. We need to restore bread to its rightful place on the table.
Have you succeeded in destroying the bad reputation of pre-cooked bread?
Big business has treated the product really badly. In the end, bread is profitable if it’s produced at high speed, but what bread really needs is to be made slowly, calmly and carefully. If bread has been made well, it can be pre-cooked and frozen, and it will still be good bread. Bread is an age-old food, probably the most consumed food, and at the same time it is the most abused food we have, which is why we must re-evaluate it.
Black bread deluxe limited edition
How many kinds of bread does Triticum make?
We make over 100 different breads. It’s a very wide, versatile and cross-cutting portfolio. We make everything from rolls to tin loaves for breakfast, bread cut to order, etc. The gourmet cuisine market allows us to evolve year by year, because it never stops looking into new possibilities. We do bespoke products for certain customers, such as El Celler de Can Roca, Paco Pérez del Miramar and Ángel León… great chefs who have a new set of requirements every year, and that gives us the chance to be creative, which is the most rewarding part of our job.
What is the secret of a good bread?
Care, time, knowledge, new techniques… But the most important of these is time. We select good quality products, good flours and good ingredients… But we take two days to make the bread. We work with natural fermentation techniques, using a natural, yeast-free sourdough. It is a liquid starter which raises the level of lactic acid. We let the starter rest for 24 hours. The following day, we make a dough, add the starter and leave it for another 24 hours. The whole process takes two days. Bread needs care, calm… We are bakers and we want the guest to enjoy our bread as much as we do. It’s not a question of money: it’s all about passion. What we want to do is to reclaim the status of bread.
So what comes after working with the top chefs?
We want to work with people who really appreciate bread. We have another important project in hand: a new company focusing on gluten-free products. We believe it’s important that everyone can eat high-quality products. The gluten-free movement is much abused by the sector. We are also doing a lot of work in the export market. We’re not a big business, nor do we want to be one, but we’d like the people who want to enjoy our bread to be able to do so.
Petit ficelle cereals
