Written by Catherine Lioult
BEAUTIFUL STORIES 2024. Loïc Nervi could have been content to open more and more bakeries in Lorgues and in the neighboring villages. But at the start of the war in Ukraine, he decided to cross Europe four times in 2024 and make bread in Ukraine. A way to bring comfort to civilian populations victims of war. Back to its history.
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He took a moving truck, and transformed it into a mobile bakery. Inside, a dough mixer, and three petit fours. And then there is also a trailer to permanently have a generator available.
And it is not in the Var that Loïc Nervi uses this tool because in this department, he has opened several bakeries, four in total, two in his hometown in Lorgues, one in Taradeau and one in Villecroze.
This forty-year-old, married and father of two children, has been on the road regularly since the start of the war in Ukraine.
On the program: six countries to cross over the course of 3,400 kilometers.
A France 3 Côte d’Azur team met him this summer:
Loïc loves his job, but explains that he has always had a humanitarian streak. And during the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in March 2022, he left with his gun in mind with the intention of going to help. The adventure ended in Poland. From frustration was born the organization.
Kherson, the destination of his trip to Ukraine.
This time again, he leaves alone, he will arrive at his destination and make 250 loaves in a small room. But he sees bigger. The rest: his itinerant bakery, in April 2024, his association, “Le Boulanger sans frontières”, a collaboration with two other associations Hope for Ukraine and Poland Helps to finance fuel and raw materials: flour, water, yeast, sugar, milk, salt and fruit for the brioches.
Ukraine's problem is the curfew. We cannot start like in France at 3 a.m., we start at 7 a.m. and that delays production.
Loïc Nervi, the Baker without Borders
Other trips? Kharkiv in June for a period of three weeks, 12 days accompanied by his baker uncle also in August to Sumy in the south of the country and again Kherson, his hometown, for 17 days in October.
His reward? The exchange with the inhabitants.
He travels every day and the associations decide on the delivery points. How does he communicate?
With people, we look at each other, we see everything! I know a few words, hello, goodbye, thank you, a few insults! But I'm a disaster at foreign languages so there's the translator!
Loïc Nervi, the Baker without Borders
Loïc shares his adventure via social networks and in Ukraine, he was entitled to a television report!
Loïc is thinking of improving the productivity of his mobile bakery and he aims to produce more than 1000 loaves of bread per day.
“I will be in Beirut in January 2025“, he tells us. “I was not able to go to Spain recently, because I postpone my trips when there are people in my bakeries to replace me and I had obligations in the Var“.
Loïc, the “Baker without Borders” will soon be hitting the road again to make bread for people in need. And among his projects, perhaps a house in Kherson when the conflict is over. Because when he first arrived there, he told us that he was so proud for this baptism trip, “I arrived alone, the Ukrainians were amazed!”
