Fuehr
Moonachie-based bakery café chain Paris Baguette has a new executive chef.
Chef Andre Fuehr brings over 30 years of culinary experience ranging from fine dining to scratch cooking and custom food manufacturing to the role. He will lead a team of bakers, support growth goals of the bakery café and lean into customer insights to plan for the future, according to a March 22 hiring announcement.
“Chef Fuehr’s passion and knowledge of both the culinary and hospitality world will be invaluable to our product development and cafés,” said CEO Darren Tipton. “His customer-centric approach and community-spirited leadership style will play a pivotal role in our commitment to producing high-quality baked and brewed goods as we bring Paris Baguette to neighborhoods across the country.”
Fuehr joined the team earlier this year and has since traveled across the country immersing himself in the brand.
He landed his first position in a professional kitchen at 15 years old and went on to become sous chef under Raimond Hofmeister at fine dining establishment Century Plaza Hotel in Vancouver. After working in restaurants, Fuehr spent time scaling products in commercial kitchens. According to Paris Baguette, he “often produc[ed] 3 to 5 million units of something without disrupting quality.”
He then became executive chef at Chicago-style pizza chain Unos and was tasked with launching a thin-crust pizza, which he successfully did using the ovens and equipment on hand, even though they were specialized for cooking only deep-dish pies.
Most recently, Fuehr found himself feeding children in need in Massachusetts during the pandemic as director of operations at Sodexo. He scaled the company’s 12,000 weekly meal production facility to output 120,000 meals a week, totaling nearly 7 million meals in 2020, according to his hiring announcement.
“I spent the early part of my career as a typical young chef, working in kitchens around the clock,” Fuehr said. “But I found my passion for food when I started working in test kitchens and learned to scale production. This is where all the pieces come together at Paris Baguette: bringing expert craftsmanship in baked and brewed goods to scale for our customers today and tomorrow. I’m excited to be part of the growth of the bakery cafés and help navigate the business changes that will come our way through expansion.”
