Chairman Hur Young-in of SPC Group, which operates Paris Baguette and Dunkin Donuts in Korea and around the world and is slated to open a bakery plant in France soon.

A view of the Opera Paris Baguette Boulangerie in Paris.(Photos: SPC Group)

SPC Group, which operates the bakery chain Paris Baguette and Dunkin Donuts in Korea is about to set up a bakery in France to the surprise of the French people, who take great pride in their bread.
The group already picked out a location for its bakery. The move will kick start its plan to build many of its own bakeries and confectionary plants in France and around the world. The group will build a plant in the Bretagne region in northern France, which is famous for the concentration of many food plants in France ― some 1,300 various food plants are in operation in the region.
The area has some 30,000 farms producing all kinds of farm produce to be supplied to the food plants in the region including meats, milk and vegetables. Chairman Hur Young-in broached the idea to set up a bakery plant in France to explore the French confectionary market and to boost the reputation of Paris Baguette, which is being opened around the world, from its birth place, Korea.
The group plans to ship the breads produced at its French plant to the U.S. and Korea, mainly, with the real purpose for setting up a bread plant in France being to boost the value of Paris Baguette, a bakery and confectionary store it set up in Korea which is now expanding around the world by producing bread from its own plant in France to take advantage of the French reputation for its fine confectionary items.
An official of SPC Group said they will start building the plant in the fall, although details have yet to be hammered out, including the exact investment. He said they will also open more Paris Baguette stores in France, including in Mont Saint Michel, a city brimming with foreign tourists. Some 3.5 million people visited the city last year. The “Rock Island” town was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. The first Paris Baguette in France was opened in 2014 in Chatelier, Paris, followed by the Opera Paris Baguette store the next year.
 Chairman Hur Young-in said the investment in the French bread plant would be around 20 million French franc, or 26.2 billion won, while attending an international business conference in Versailles near Paris in January. The French government hosted the global meeting to attract foreign investments to France with a score of French government officials attending led by President Emmanuel Macron.
SPC Group has some 300 Paris Baguette stores around the world as it been speeding up setting up its foreign stores around the world in the past several years. As of the end of last year, the group had a total of 63 Paris Baguette stores in the U.S. alone, including 47 directly run and 16 franchise stores.
The group projects annual sales revenue will reach around 20 trillion won by 2030, from some 12,000 Paris Baguette stores, with 100,000 employees running those stores at home and overseas.
The Paris Baguette bakery chain was founded in 1988 by the Korean businessman Hur Young-in, head of the food and confectionary group SPC. It has 3,250 boulangerie la franchise outlets in South Korea and bakeries in America, Singapore, Vietnam and China where it aims to open 500 shops. At worldwide outlets outside France it calls itself a "traditional French bakery" its logo features the Eiffel Tower and employees wear stripy Breton T-shirts and berets. However, much of the bread is made in South Korea, frozen and dispatched around the globe.
At its first Paris outlet in the central 1st arrondissement near the Seine, the huge Paris Baguette boulangerie, with its chocolate brown awnings, employs local chefs and claims to use "only traditional French bakery ingredients and methods."