Founded in Vancouver in 2022 by French immigrants Alice Couderc and Lucas Navilloz, Atome Bakery is a French-inspired artisan bakery bringing sourdough breads, pastries and other baked goods directly to Canadian homes.
Born from the founders’ search for the fresh, quality bread they grew up with in France, Atome Bakery developed a ready-to-bake model that combines traditional slow fermentation and high-quality ingredients with modern convenience. Its products are made fresh using organic Canadian flour, water and wild starter, naturally leavened and fermented overnight before being frozen at peak freshness and delivered in eco-friendly packaging, ready to be baked at home.
As Canada’s only ready-to-bake artisan bread and pastry delivery service, Atome Bakery has shipped more than 40,000 boxes and grown to more than 3,000 regular subscribers. The company was named Emerging Business of the Year 2025 by BC Food & Beverage, with its Sourdough Loaf earning Silver for Product of the Year 2025. Additional honours include Company of the Year at the Chambre de Commerce Francophone de Vancouver’s Palme Bleue Awards and Best Company Over Five Employees at Les Lauriers de la PME. Couderc and Navilloz were also named French Entrepreneurs Abroad 2024 by the French Chamber of Commerce, while Couderc was recognized through Visa’s She’s Next program supporting women-owned businesses.
The bakery currently ships across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with plans to expand throughout North America.
In an interview with Retail Insider, Navilloz spoke about the unique brand.
What prompted Atome Bakery to partner with Lucid Communications at this stage of the company’s growth, and what are your key business and expansion objectives for the next 12 to 24 months?
For almost three years we grew Atome through digital marketing and word of mouth. That took us past 41,000 boxes. But an ad can’t really explain what we do: a French bakery shipping raw, frozen sourdough and croissants that you bake in your own oven. A journalist can. Lucid helps us reach the many Canadians who haven’t heard of us yet.
Over the next 12 to 24 months we want to grow in Eastern Canada, build our subscriber base, and bring good, healthy bread to more Canadian kitchens.
How has the ready-to-bake model performed since Atome launched in 2022, including growth in sales, subscribers and geographic reach?
Atome didn’t start as a business idea, it started because of a need. We’re French, and in Vancouver we missed the bread and pastries we grew up with, so we started making them ourselves, in our own kitchen, in our own neighbourhood of Kitsilano.
It grew very organically from there. Today we deliver across Canada, our sales have doubled year over year, and between 60 and 75% of that comes from subscriptions: people aren’t just trying us once, they’re making Atome part of their routine. That same sourdough loaf we first baked at home later won silver for Product of the Year 2025 at the BC Food & Beverage Awards, we couldn’t be more proud of what we achieved with the team so far.
What are the biggest operational challenges involved in producing, freezing and shipping artisan sourdough and pastries across Canada while maintaining the quality you are aiming for?
The first challenge is maintaining product quality. Our dough is alive. We don’t par-bake anything: our sourdough is flour, water, salt and a wild starter, fermented for more than 24 hours, then frozen raw. Freeze it too early and it won’t rise in your oven. Freeze it too late, and it collapses. We test constantly to protect that quality, and keep improving how we freeze and ship. We are also our first customer, if the bread is not good, we dont have good bread at home, and that’s not acceptable.
The second is Canada itself. A box has to stay frozen all the way to the door, whether that’s downtown Toronto or a small town in Saskatchewan. Dry ice needs change by zone and season, carrier transit times vary, and a box can’t sit in a depot over a weekend. Off-the-shelf tools weren’t built for that. That’s why we created F2C, our own frozen fulfilment company, with software built for frozen shipping. It now fulfils for other frozen brands too.
Who is the core Atome customer today, and how has consumer demand for premium, convenient at-home bakery products evolved since the company launched?
Our core customer is a woman with a family, often 45 to 50, living just outside a city. She cares about good ingredients and likes cooking for family and friends. We also see two other strong groups. One is older couples who travelled a lot in Europe and want that bread and pastry at home again. The other is long-term expats who have missed the real thing for years and don’t want to go without it anymore. Gifting matters too: people send a box of croissants the way they used to send flowers.
Demand has also shifted our way since 2022. People often assume we started baking during COVID. We didn’t. We were baking long before that, but we started the company afterward, and the timing was good: a lot of people had tried sourdough at home, learned how much work it is, and still wanted that quality, without the work.
You have shipped more than 40,000 boxes and have plans to expand throughout North America. What markets are you targeting next, and what will be required operationally and financially to support that expansion?
After only a couple of months of focused effort, Ontario and Quebec already make up almost half of our sales. That’s where our energy goes next.
The priority is more stock and fulfilment capacity in Eastern Canada, closer to those customers, so we can deliver faster and grow deeper in both provinces. Later, we’ll reach more of the Prairies and Atlantic Canada.
We served US customers before, and the demand was there. We’ll go back when the timing is right and business between the two countries is more predictable.
Financially, that means investing in inventory ahead of demand. For a brand doubling every year, cash flow is always the challenge, but it’s the right one to have.Â
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