By Donald H. Harrison

SAN MARCOS, Calif. —Those kosher meringue cookies that you are seeing in more and more grocery
stores and bakery sections represent another American immigrant success story.

But before you jump to the conclusion that the kosher entrepreneur was some Jewish fellow who spoke the mama loshen back in an Eastern European country, think again.

The Miss Meringue line of cookies is the product of Jacques Gourmet, a San Marcos-based company operated by non-Jewish French immigrants who also own the chain of 18 Champagne French Bakeries stretching from Del Mar Heights in San Diego to Northern California.

Jacques Gourmet is named after its affable vice president and executive chef, Jacques Pautrat, 42, who grew up in the Champagne region of France, where he served his apprenticeship as a baker. From there, he went on to work as a pastry chef in Paris and then New York. One of the New York City restaurants where he whipped up delights was the Rainbow Room atop the RCA building.

Warm weather attracted him to San Diego, where he met Roland D'Abel, a French businessman whose construction company specialized locally in building bakeries. The two men decided to open a bakery of their own in a shopping center on Rancho Santa Fe Road in Encinitas, picking a location easily accessible to D'Abel's former home in Rancho Santa Fe.

The combination bakery and restaurant concept did well enough that the partners soon opened another location in Del Mar near L'Auberge Hotel, and yet another one in a shopping center on Del Mar Heights Road.

"When I was a baker in Paris and Champagne, we made lots of meringue and I saw that the people loved it. Here, I noticed that Americans love sweets, love sugar, and I decided to make a business of meringue," Poutrat said.

So in 1997 he whipped up and baked enough sugar and egg whites to make up some meringue samples and took them around to various retailers and club stores. The buyer at one told him flatly that he didn't like the product, but the buyer at another was intrigued enough to ask to visit Jacques Gourmet's facility. Upon arriving at a Champagne French Bakery, she complained that she didn¹t want to see a store, she wanted to see a factory.

"I am not ready," Poutrat confessed to the buyer, whose affiliation remains a trade secret. "I want to sell you meringue. I want you to see everything that we do, that we do it right. The high quality, you can see it here. But
the meringue is like a dream. I want to make it for you, so please give me the opportunity."

The buyer gave Poutrat a purchase order for 600 cases of meringue cookies, to be delivered "whenever you are ready." There are 12 tubs of cookies to a case and roughly 22 classic-size cookies per tub. "So we bought a 1,500-square-foot facility, bought a big mixer, and at the time I made all the meringue by hand, using a pastry bag. All my bakers were working in the bakeries in the morning, and in the afternoons they would
come and help me make the meringues, and I was making the meringues with this bag 18-20 hours a day. It was amazing. It was crazy. We did it!"

The order was trucked to the buyer's warehouse. Poutrat asked her when he could expect the second order. She told him that they would have to see how the market reacts to the meringues and would call him for more if the trend was positive.
:I said, 'Well, okay, I believe in what I do, so okay.' Unfortunately, she then went on a trip and didn¹t come back for a couple of weeks. Every day I was next to the phone waiting to get another order. And
we didn¹t get an order. So after a couple of weeks, I said, 'Well, we didn't sell anything."

"I started talking to the employees, saying that maybe I won¹t be able to keep you. Then suddenly she called me and said, 'Jacques, you know I was away. I need a truck load tomorrow." I said 'I cannot make a truck (load) in one day; I have one oven, one mixer." So she said, 'Okay, send me a truck
whenever you are ready, and the week after another truck, and the week after that...'

"So I started to order some ovens and organized my supplies. It was so crazy because almost every single week she would double the order."

The meringues caught on not only because they are sweet but also "because they are fat-free or low-fat (depending on the variety),"said Adrien De Alexandris, the assistant brand manager who had been listening, with a smile of enjoyment, to the executive chef's story.

"If you look at Weight Watchers, the meringue cookies cost only two points per serving size — which is four to five cookies in our classic size or 13 cookies in our mini size."

From the 1,500-square-foot facility, the company moved to another one that was 9,500 square feet. Sales and production kept growing. Today the company operates from a 90,000-square-foot facility. The production area is perhaps 70,000 square feet of that, Poutrat estimated. This is divided into two
divisions — one for meringue and the other for other baked products.

Attending food shows around the country in an effort to expand its market, Jacques Gourmet encountered a question they frankly hadn't considered: "Are these cookies kosher?" In particular, they heard the question at a fancy food show in New York City, with one buyer in particular suggesting a substantial order would be possible if only they were kosher.

The company thus was motivated to contact the Orthodox Union to inquire what was involved to have the meringues certified as kosher. The requirements weren't too difficult, Poutrat recalled.

"We had to make sure that we used the proper cooler for what we need, make sure that we used the proper trays, so that we didn't mix what we make in the pastry area with the meringue area," Poutrat recalled. "That was the main part because meringue is very simple. We use only two main ingredients (sugar and egg whites)."

The OU mashgiach who regularly inspects Jacques Gourmet, Rabbi Aharon Yitzchok Shapiro, said in order to become kosher, Miss Meringue and other cookies produced by the company had to be produced in a completely separate environment from the non-kosher bakery. This meant separate refrigerators, separate trays and separate ovens for the two divisions. Additionally, Shapiro said, Jacques Gourmet had to
decide whether it wanted to produce cookies that were kosher dairy or kosher pareve.

The chocolate chips the company had been purchasing were kosher, but were made on equipment that also produced milk chocolate. If Jacques Gourmet were to continue using that chip, then all the products that potentially cameinto contact with it— for example, those that were baked in the same oven or placed on the same tray — also would have to be treated as kosher dairy products.

Kosher dairy products are not so popular as pareve products — neither with observant Jews nor with people who are lactose intolerant. If the product is dairy, an observant Jew has to worry 
how many hours has it been since I've eaten meat," whereas if the product is pareve, it can be snacked upon at any time, Shapiro said.

Jacques Gourmet's solution to this problem was to change chocolate chip suppliers, switching to a dark chocolate chip.

Another product, a meringue cookie that has chocolate drizzled over it, is sent to a kosher dairy vendor for the drizzling, Shapiro said. The label shows it as an "OU-D" product.

Joe Arnold, vice president of operations, took me on a tour of the production plant accompanied by Bruce Regis, vice president of marketing, and my son, David Harrison, director of finance for the company.

Arnold is a food scientist who received his master's degree from Michigan State and later worked in research and development for Mars Candy. He said Jacques Gourmet produces 4,000 cases, or 48,000 tubs, of meringues per day, some of them in the larger classic size (22 to a tub) and the balance in the
mini size (70 to a tub).

To meet this schedule, the company employs 132 workers who staff the production line around the clock on weekdays.

Flavors are cappucino, mint chocolate chip (Rabbi Shapiro's personal favorite), regular chocolate chip, vanilla, chocolate, rainbow (vanilla with food coloring), lemon, orange and triple chocolate sprinkled with cocoa
butter.

The mini-size was introduced about a year ago after Arnold "was able to come up with a good manufacturing process to produce smaller cookies in a very cost-effective manner," commented Harrison, a graduate of the Wharton School of Business.

"Once we did that, we found that it quickly started to take over a significant portion of our business," Harrison said. "We think it will someday surpass classic (the larger size) if the trend continues."

A mini meringue appeals to a different class of cookie munchers than the larger classic meringue does, Arnold said. "It is bite-size" and can be popped right into the mouth, he said. While the classic appeals to people
who like to "take several bites from the product," the mini especially "appeals to kids because it is a little more fun to eat."

Besides by taste, said Arnold, consumers often judge a food by "sensations —how it makes you feel."

That and, of course, by whether or not it's kosher.