Marseilles, urbanites and graduates, these thirty-somethings contrast with the stereotype of the burn-out executive who dumps everything to do battle with his bullshit job. They rather found meaning in their former profession: that did not prevent them from plunging into a completely different activity. Out of curiosity, passion or madness.
If they have in common to have a well-made head, in addition to a rather copious Instagram account, all these reconverts have chosen a trade of mouth in artisanal version. With their hands, Audrey Emery, Iris Michalon, Guillaume Strebler, Claire Hollender and Aurélien Ducloux reinvent traditional know-how to offer high-end products to customers who seek, like them, to respect a certain ethic in their consumption patterns. .
“We always find, among these profiles, a global opposition to industrial production, in a sometimes fantasized conception: they think that manufacturing is polluting, that products are standardized, not “natural” and full of additives, observes Antoine Dain, doctoral student in sociology at Aix-Marseille University, who is finishing his thesis on “Professional mobility of skilled workers”by comparing reconversions in catering and in construction. By contrast, they work with local products that often have a historical depth – such as sourdough or old wheat in the bakery – and reject a form of modernity. They highlight “old-fashioned” products that must be preserved, with very marked personalization and identity. »
“Aiming for Excellence”
Marseille looks like a huge laboratory in this area. In Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, the number of business creations in the food trades increased by 15% between 2019 and 2022, according to the region’s chamber of trades and crafts: ” It is enormous “, says its president, Yannick Mazette, who himself became an artisan baker thirty years ago after working in the tire industry. In some sectors, the figures have exploded: + 50% registrations in the manufacture of dairy products, + 250% in the processing of tea and coffee. “These people in retraining come with a storycontinues Yannick Mazette. They shake up the codes a bit, but it is through difference that they will exist. The all-comers no longer have their place, we must aim for excellence. »
Far from the industrial society, where everyone remained forty years in the same profession, “the individual now favors a change of career for his personal development, with consumption as a support for self-affirmation”, analyzes Juliette Guidon, doctoral student in sociology at the University of Paris Cité, under a Cifre contract – an industrial agreement for training through research – with the hotel school Ferrandi, whose thesis focuses on the “voluntary professional retraining of executives in the catering trades”. “Social background will count a lot: from childhood, these executives have learned to eat organic food, to go to the market with their parents… They will reclaim these family consumption habits during the retraining, as well as their professional skills: as bosses, they are in a horizontal transition rather than downgrading. »
You have 89.23% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.