▲ La Creme Patisserie / CEO Heoju Lee

Cakes, deserts and breads are getting 'once a day buy' alongside an increasing number of coffee drinkers and cafes in the nation. You can literally bump into at least a coffee shop or a cafe that sells coffee, beverages and snacks on a street no matter how small it is wherever you go even in remote areas. As the industry is booming, academies and institutes that train bakers and baristas are also in this fast growing market.

[La Creme Patisserie]
Heoju Lee, CEO of La Creme Patisserie, served the president of the Korea Flower Cake Association before launching the current business. Her business sense told her that flower cake would make a hit in the nation and indeed the market grew fast. She enjoyed 6 to 8 months waiting lists for the flower cake course she ran. As the class is designed to complete a course in 4 days based on 4 students per class, she soon could not handle the waiting lists. In an effort to find a way, she came to know about vocational training centers supported by the Ministry of Employment and Labor. The support included a start-up package with government fund. Thus born was La Creme Patisserie. 

[Down to Earth Training and Support]
All instructors at La Creme Patisserie have more than 10 year experience in the field. It is notable that learners at La Creme Patisserie come with various backgrounds from researchers at big companies and educators to franchisers and consultants. Lee ascribes part of this reason to down to earth training programs that can be immediately applied in the field. Since opening in 2017, La Creme Patisserie has built a strong presence in the field and in 2020 obtained a vocational school license. The curriculum at La Creme Patisserie covers all necessary theories and skills needed to be a good bakery from analyzing where the student wants to work and what it requires to training and market research. Instructors help students make portfolios with works they created, and contact each student after 6 months of finishing the course whether they have had a job in any related field or provide additional advice and internship support otherwise.

[Cake Design]
Cake Design is a highly praised course uniquely run at La Creme Patisserie. It lays a greater importance on creativity followed by expressive power and technique that comes with consulting on branding, marketing, menu design and financing. 

"I observed many flower cake course completers fail their business within 2 years of opening. As I myself is a professional in the field, I analyze this with lack of consulting side. At the end of the day, business is business. No matter how good a skill we have in a certain field, business is another area of expertise that often decides success or failure. The La Creme Patisserie cake design course started with this awareness" says Lee.

[LMS]
Introducing Learning Management System, La Creme Patisserie is working on expanding collaboration with Class 101 and other creative online training platforms to meet the increasing market demand of remote learners. Meanwhile, CEO Lee is focusing the same amount of effort in offline courses connected with seminars and gatherings. <PowerKorea>