From novice baker to king of hamburgers, Carlos Pérez now earns 16 million euros at only 34. An extraordinary success in response to those who advised against his chosen profession.
The story
Baker Carlos Pérez (Alcaucín, Malaga, 34 years old) manages Juanito Baker bakery, Fermento bakeries, and Julieta cafes, producing over two million buns per month. The aroma of freshly baked bread accompanied him since childhood. Carlos started shaping his professional future among flour bags, doughs, and fermentations right after finishing his fourth year of high school. Despite his father Juan Carlos Pérez, who runs the family bakery and the Juanito bakery founded by his grandfather Juan Pérez in 1959 in their hometown, trying to dissuade him from following in his footsteps. That summer, to make him understand the difficulty of the trade, he had Carlos work six nights a week. It didn't deter him. The young man's desire and determination grew, despite the hard work and sacrifices.
In 2011, he decided to undergo professional training at a pastry shop in Catalonia, as told by El País. There, he began working on special breads, soft doughs, and mixes with seeds and flours like spelt. The next step was to find a different customer base interested in purchasing his bread in quantity. He found it at La Viñuela hotel in La Cueva Torre del Mar, and at El Pimpi restaurant in Malaga. Later on, new important buyers like Marcos Granda, chef of Skina restaurant in Marbella, came to Juanito. In 2018, they started developing Fermento, Casa de Panaderos, a new concept of venues with an integrated bakery.
"I contacted him because I was looking for a long-fermented bread with good hydration for Skina restaurant. I went to Galicia for a course, but when I met Carlos, I understood that we were going to do something important. From there, the idea of creating a bakery chain to supply to fine dining establishments with six different doughs was born, which improved bread service in restaurants," remembers Granda. The doughs go through double maturation: the first in the main bakery in Malaga and the second in each shop's laboratory. "We work with local flours, with white wheat, rye, multigrain, sultanas, walnuts, spelt, and buckwheat. We're constantly innovating," explains Pérez.
The business model for most of these bakeries is franchising, with an investment of 140,000 euros, "recovered in two years." The recipe benefits from sourdough and organic flour ground in a stone mill. In 2021, Carlos made another significant turn for the company and opened another business line at Juanito Baker, a hamburger bun factory in Vélez-Málaga. "It was a great success; we produce over two million of these products a month, more than 24 million a year. The secret to our burger is that the crumb doesn't crumble when you bite into it."
The workforce has also grown (from 10 employees to over 200), as has the revenue: Juanito Baker's reached eight million euros, Fermento bakeries' is nearly four million, matching the cafes' revenue. "With this workload and number of employees, we had to professionalize the company, create a human resources department, a marketing department, and a financial department. We manage everything ourselves. We didn't outsource anything. We either invested in this or everything we had created could have been ruined," Pérez continues, speaking of risk and sacrifice. Now he knows there are no limits.
Cover photo: @Salvador Salas
