Christophe Delpuech

Christophe Delpuech has been here from the very start, in 2011, and it is an understatement to say he knows the portable power market inside out. In charge of purchasing and sales, he is the first link in the chain: he decides which products make it into the catalogue and which never will. Needless to say, his opinion carries weight, and a manufacturer does not easily sell him a marketing pitch.

His method is known to the whole team: every charger, portable power station or generator he considers listing goes through a punishing test, pushed to the limit of its capabilities. Repeated charges, borderline power draws, behavior once the battery is warm, real accuracy of the advertised watts: Christophe looks for the gap between the spec sheet and reality, because that is always where the nasty surprises hide. With more than 75 product tests to his name, he has developed a rare instinct for spotting, within minutes, a device that will not live up to its promises.

His favorite line, repeated to the brands' sales reps, sums up the spirit of the house rather well: we don't want your best-seller, we want your best product. It is his buyer's choices, demanding and sometimes unpopular with suppliers, that guarantee the coherence of the catalogue and the trust of readers. The same filter applies on Au Frais, where he steers the selection of portable and fixed air conditioners as well as air purifiers with the same uncompromising eye.

Married and a father of two, Christophe recharges his own batteries out in nature: a tireless hiker, especially attached to the Gorges du Tarn, where he often tests in real conditions the runtime of a power station or a cool box during long family outings. A fairly logical way, for him, to check that a product holds up far from any power socket.