A highlight of the MiM was putting together a business plan: “Working in small teams, we drew upon everything we had learned and went through all the necessary steps — brainstorming, market research, financials, minimum viable product — and submitted a final business plan to a jury of professors and investors who, if they saw the project as viable, might invest in it.”

“The most difficult part was finding a good business idea. It was important to find something that we were passionate about. My team and I wanted to develop a product focused on sustainability, but with high scalability.”

Chevallier’s eureka moment came when he saw a local supermarket throwing away a huge amount of bread at the end of every day. “I wondered how we could take advantage of all that waste.”

A solution already existed: recycling leftover bread into beer. Indeed, it is believed that the ancient Egyptians had discovered a way of making beer by letting bread ferment in water. Based on similar principles, they figured the bread that supermarkets, bakeries and restaurants were going to throw away anyway could be substituted for 30%-50% of the malt used in beer.

Originally, their plan was to distribute their specialty beer directly to local bars. But the more Chevallier thought about it, he began to get other ideas.

Caring for people and the environment

Rather than being a private label brewer, distributing his product through other bars, why not open his own brewpub and distribute his own product himself? It made sense, since he would sell only what he produced, without intermediaries, and this would give him greater control over the experience he was able to offer to his own customers.

The Lavoisier brewpub opened in Malasaña, a hip neighborhood popular with students in Madrid. It offers tastings of craft beer, which is produced in collaboration with the Mica Brewery, located in Spain’s Ribera del Duero region, using leftover bread from area bakeries. Chevallier is already looking to expand his premises to be able to brew more beer.

In many ways, Lavoisier reflects the principles of caring for people and the environment that are so central, not only to Chevallier, but to his family business group, which also owns a stake in the business. He explains how their core values manifest themselves:

• Renewal. “We have recovered more than a ton of bread that would otherwise have ended up going to waste.”
• Conscious collaboration. “We choose to partner with a local artisanal brewer that shares our vision of sustainability, the circular economy and inclusion.”
• Purposeful design. “Almost all the decor in our brewpub comes from recycled or repurposed materials — for example, reusing wood from old boats.”
• Human attention. “We seek to maintain stable relationships with our customers, as well as with our employees and suppliers — whom we pay on time — built on an understanding of transparency and fairness.”
• Work-life balance. “We close on Sundays and Mondays. While we could make more money if we opened on Sundays, for us it is vital that people have time off for rest, and Sundays are when people traditionally spend time with their families.”

For Chevallier, “the quality of our human relationships is what determines the economic results.” That is what life, school and family have taught him, and that is what guides his next steps. “Maybe Lavoisier is the beginning of a small revolution.”