Lutetia Café and Bakery serves European-style food, coffee, and baked goods to residents of Tianmu, a dense suburban neighborhood in the northern part of Taipei, Taiwan.
Lutetia started out as a small corner café. It grew over the past decade to include multiple locations and a thriving bakery. The bakery now employs several bakers, who arrive at work before dawn to start making baguettes, pain de campagne loaves, and other artisan breads.
Tackling Delivery Challenges in an Asian Metropolis
Some of the bread is served in Lutetia's own cafés, while some is sold to large supermarkets in Tianmu that want to stock some of the only authentic European bread around. But delivering the loaves to these resellers in a quick and cost-efficient way poses its own challenges.
Tianmu's narrow roads and winding alleys were designed to accommodate two-wheeled vehicles—not delivery vans. And like the rest of Taipei, the neighborhood struggles with excessive scooter and car traffic that creates traffic jams and damages the local air quality. Add in the difficulty of finding parking, and delivering fresh food becomes a serious logistical problem.
The team at Lutetia needed to find a solution that would allow them to stay true to the business's community roots and European attitude while making time- and cost-efficient deliveries daily.
Faster and Cleaner Deliveries with E-Bikes
Lutetia Owner Cedric Guyot realized that using an e-bike for bread deliveries would have some big advantages.
Using an e-bike would eliminate the need to hire dedicated delivery drivers with scooter or car licenses. And the bike would be more maneuverable and easier to park than other delivery vehicles, cutting down on the time and resources needed to make deliveries.
Finally, using a zero-emissions vehicle would help the Lutetia team do their part to protect the environment.
Sharing a Bike and Building Community
Guyot decided to start using a Tern GSD equipped with a Eurocrate and a Transporteur rack. Since getting their GSD, the team at Lutetia has discovered that the bike not only improves the delivery process but also helps build community among the staff and residents of Tianmu.
"Everyone in the company is using it," said Guyot. "We've got tall people and small people." Because the GSD easily adjusts to fit riders 150 - 195 cm (4'11" - 6'5"), anyone who's available can use the bike to deliver fresh bread as soon as it's ready.
The GSD also creates opportunities for the Lutetia team to see and interact with their local community. "You're fast enough to deliver the bread, but you also have enough time to recognize and be recognized," Guyot explains. He added that the team feels good about being a visible part of the eco-friendly movement.
Overall, Guyot says the Lutetia team has been won over by the freedom and flexibility the GSD offers. "Once we started using the electric bike, I don't think we would ever go back to a normal scooter or car."
The Lutetia team's commitment to serving their community authentically helped them improve their business, their neighborhood, and the environment—all with the help of a well-designed e-bike.
If you think e-bikes could help your business overcome delivery challenges, Tern can help.
