The Cook-Shop Story
Cook-Shop wasn't born in a meeting room or behind a perfect business plan. It was born from a personal problem, a community… and a real need.
The starting point: a constraint that becomes a direction
My name is Nathalie Cahet. I became deaf at 25, when I was a saleswoman.
At the time, this disability could have put an end to my professional life. The telephone became complicated. Noisy environments, exhausting.
But the internet was coming into homes and it offered me something unexpected: a way to work, communicate and create without my deafness being a permanent obstacle.
It was this constraint that led me to digital very early on, long before it was a strategy.
2007: A community before a business
In 2007, I opened a food blog, Ligne et Papilles, dedicated to everyday cooking.
At that time, food blogs were still rare in France. A few of us were building communities around cooking and baking — without the word "influencer" yet existing to describe what we were doing.
It was in this ecosystem that I met Mercotte.
Her blog is entirely dedicated to pastry making. She recreates the recipes of great chefs with a precision and clarity that have earned her a loyal and discerning community. Her readers want to reproduce these recipes. To do so, they need the same ingredients as the professionals: emulsifiers, texturizers, couverture chocolate, and foaming agents.
These products existed. But they were only available in industrial quantities, beyond the reach of an individual.
I was the only one offering them in suitable formats.
Mercotte told them where to find them. Her readers became my first customers.
I didn't invent Cook-Shop. It's a real need, expressed by a real community.
2009: The birth of Cook-Shop
I started by storing a few items at home. I prepared the orders by hand. Then came a small space, a warehouse, physical stores, thousands of items and a team of passionate people.
Today Cook-Shop has been in existence for over 15 years, has stores in France, more than 60,000 members in our online community and several thousand products available.
Mercotte stayed. She is now the official godmother of Cook-Shop — a relationship that began long before the word "partnership" entered the vocabulary of the web.
Mercotte, our godmother, has been recommending us since the beginning!
2020: Understanding from the inside
In 2020, I took the CAP pastry chef exam as a private candidate.
Not to obtain a degree.
To understand from the inside the work of the professionals we had been providing for ten years — and to identify precisely what was still missing for amateurs who wanted to work like them.
What I am discovering there confirms what our customers have been expressing for years: the most useful technical ingredients remain packaged in industrial quantities, inaccessible for domestic use.
Our very first store
Paticréa : making technology accessible
This observation gave birth to Paticréa .
A range of technical ingredients repackaged in small quantities, with the same quality as what professionals use — but adapted for those who bake at home.
Paticréa 's packaging is done with an ESAT, a long-standing partner.
Cook-Shop was founded by a person with a disability. Paticréa is packaged in partnership with a sheltered workshop (ESAT). This is no coincidence. From the beginning, accessibility has been at the heart of what we do — accessibility of products, techniques, and job opportunities.
Today
Cook-Shop has been in existence for over fifteen years and its conviction has not changed:
Pastry making is not reserved for professionals.
The techniques, products and associated results can be put in the hands of anyone who is willing to learn.
This is what we have been doing since 2009 with Ludovic, who has been co-managing the company with me since 2015.
Ludovic and me