Bake-Off is Where the Action is Fastest On Europe’s Retail Baked Goods Scene
By TED SHOEMAKER, QFFI Correspondent

Hiestand & Suhr produces a wide assortment of bake-off items for bake shops, ranging from tasty breads to pastry.

Producers tap into growing demand for frozen dough products formulated to be finished off in ovens at supermarkets and restaurants, as well as in consumers’ homes kitchens.

“Bake off is the only segment of the stagnant baked goods market that is still growing.”
So said one German company official of the biggest current trend in the frozen baked goods segment. Just about any baked item, whether bread or pastry, can be proofed, partially baked and frozen at a central plant and delivered to retail outlets or other points of sale. All end-users have to do is finish the baking to get products indistinguishable from those baked the traditional way. \

Rolls, baguettes, ciabatta and other small bread items can usually be placed in the oven frozen. Regular loaf bread, croissants and pastries generally must be thawed for a time, but they also come to the customer as fresh.

The main users of the service in Europe are the bakery sections of supermarkets. But an entirely new breed of store, the self-service bake shop, has grown up around the process. Ovens are found in other places too – notably filling stations in Germany. They sell a surprising number of food items, including fresh rolls now, on Sundays when other stores must stay closed by law. These par-baked goods are also available to those consumers who bake off products in their own ovens at home.

At supermarkets and bake shops, the baking continues as long as the store is open, producing enticing aromas that trigger impulse buying, convincing the customers that the product is really fresh, and also giving the impression of skilled craftsmen at work.

In addition to bagels, Bagel Bakery offers a variety of Muffins with flavors raging from dark chocolate and blueberry to walnut banana, rum raisin and hazelnut.

Actually there is no need for a trained, professional baker. One does not need to have gone through years of apprenticeship to place a frozen or thawed item in the oven and set it for a prescribed time and temperature.

The supermarkets were the first to see the possibilities of the bake station. They mainly offer rolls, baguettes, croissants, ciabatta and other bread items. But a few also provide pastries and even hot snacks.

The self-service bakeries, usually located in densely frequented, downtown pedestrian zones, began to appear in 2002. They are mainly operated by large chains or big industrial bakers. The typical store is divided into two segments, separated by a glass display case featuring the goods. The bakery section is behind the display case and customers help themselves to the goods from the front of it.

Goods are restricted to items that lend themselves to self service. Nothing is sticky or fatty. Customers place them on a tray, using the tongs or disposable plastic gloves that are provided, take them to the cash register and pack them themselves.

It goes without saying that the bake stations are making things rough for traditional bakers. Among other things, their prices are very low compared to the bakery. On the other hand, the self-service bakeries aren’t able to offer the rich variety of goods that many shoppers have come to expect in the traditional places.

The Verband Deutscher Grossbäckereien (VDG) estimates that there are now 10,000 German supermarkets with ovens and 300 of the bake shops. The volume of shops is sure to grow.

A number of firms are in the business of supplying the bake-off stations. The market leader is Kamps AG of Düsseldorf (Fax: +49 2 1153 0634 34), which operates 80 industrial bakeries, many of them large, in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy. Despite financial difficulties (it has now been taken over by the Italian pasta giant Barilla) it delivers daily to some 4,000 stores, and operates or franchises some 1,050 bake shops, including a number of the new self service outlets. Much of the production is in packaged baked goods, but it leads in the frozen bake-off department too.

Ham and Cheese-filled Croissants in 200g bags is one of the attractively packaged retail products made by Fricopan.

Two companies offer a complete service to the bake shops. Hiestand & Suhr of Vogtsburg-Achkarren (Fax: +49 7662-9303-55) and Bäckerei Brinker of Herne (Fax: +49 2323-9308-18) supply a full range of frozen bread and pastry products. And they also arrange for all else needed – from ovens and frozen food lockers to self-service display cases and coffee machines, plus advice and training.

Hiestand & Suhr’s offers rustic bread, Mediterranean, Tirolean and wood oven varieties. These, it says, meet a trend to traditional, healthy breads.

Brinker, which began supplying the bake-off market in 1992, is one of the pioneers in the business. It’s a very traditional firm, founded in 1919 by the grandfather of the present proprietor.

American-style baked goods are gaining in popularity in Germany, and Bagel Bakery GmbH is exclusively in the business of supplying the market with such products. The firm, situated at Drossdorf in the former East Germany (Fax: +49 3441-7250-20), has a line of bagels, muffins, brownies, doughnuts and cookies for the bake stations.

Bagel Bakery was founded in Zeitz by Gregor Gerlach and Christian Kiefer during 2000 with the help of state funds aimed at bettering the industrial base in the ex-Communist state. Their know-how was gained during a two-year stay in Chicago, where he founding partners met.

While the rolls with holes known today as Bagels are said to have been invented in Austria in 1680, it has been only in the past decade or so that the American-style breakfast and sandwich bread has gained popularity in Europe. At the same time, fluffy-textured muffins baked in paper cups have found increasing favor among consumers on the continent.

Just across the street from Bagel Bakery, in the same Drossdorf industrial park, is one of the three plants of another major supplier to the bake-off ovens, Sinnack Backspezialitäten, which is also making a contribution to the economic revitalization of the former DDR.

When Sinnack was founded a century ago at Bocholt, West Germany, where it is still headquartered, the word “convenience” was not in any way associated with baked goods. In fact, it would hardly have been accepted by the “work ethic” Germans of that day. Yet partly-baked products are now the most successful ones for the company (Fax: +49 2871-2505-94). Its most popular frozen items these days are rolls and herb and garlic butter baguettes.

Another large supplier is Fricopan Back GmbH of Berlin (Fax: +49 30-68398322), which combines traditional know-how with modern technology. In addition to baguettes, its customers are offered a wide range of plain rolls, party rolls, raisin pudding, snacks and strudels. Recently introduced products include a ham and cheese croissant and a newly redesigned poppy seed strudel, offering a welcome alternative to the classic apple and cottage cheese strudel.

Hack AG of Kurtscheid (Fax: +49 2634-9669-40) introduced a number of fall and winter bake-off products at the Anuga trade fair held in Köln last October. They included Vinschgauer Fladen, a hearty rye bread of the sort Germans like to eat in the autumn. It doesn’t dry out and goes nicely with ham. Then there’s the salami croissant for a warm snack when it’s cold outside. Also offered is a baked apple winter croissant.

Even the French are feeling the heat of the American-style goods. Christophe Mareau, a French plant manager, admitted that “American products are having more influence and growing in popularity.” But, he added, “French products – especially baguettes and croissants – are still growing in sales as well.”

Mareau is with Gelfood Europe, a subsidiary of Boulangerie Pâtisserie Krabansky, the number one producer of parbaked bread in France. The products of the Dunkerque-based firm (Fax: +33 32-864-4944) are very traditional, including baguettes and croissants. The automated production methods are anything but traditional, as computers control everything from kneading and weighing to transport.

Krabansky, which employs 200 persons and has an annual turnover of some 21 million euros, offers more than 800 bread and pastry products around the world. Strong as its position is in northern France, 60% of what it produces is exported, notably to Great Britain, the Benelux countries and Germany. Dunkerque is strategically located less than 70 miles from London and Brussels, and only slightly further from Paris.

Also in Northern France is La Boulangerie de l’Europe of Reims (Fax: +33 3-2605-0667), which pretty well sticks to bread items. Traditional rustic bread, with a floured crust, is a house speciality. Sometimes it is enhanced with such things as olives, bacon, walnuts or cheese.

La Boulangerie supplies multiple shapes for sandwiches. There is Le Pain Triangle, and the rectangular Pavé Des Moissons has a pleasantly soft crust. For people who like their crust the other way there is the crunchy ciabatta, and the company also offers garlic bread. Another Italian specialty is panini, a sandwich bread to be toasted.

Délifrance Deutschland of Mülheim (Fax: +49 2087-8915) is a daughter of a French firm that offers more than a thousand frozen articles, mainly baked foods. Délifrance, in turn, is a daughter of Grands Moulins de Paris, Europe’s largest miller. The company recently acquired Appétit de France a leading supplier of frozen, French, bake-ready brioches, croissants and the like.

A Polish company, too, is going after the West European market. Polpain Dakri of Lodz (Fax: +48 42-674-1031) is big into traditional Polish recipes. It offers many types of white, brown and wholemeal breads, plain or with such things as raisins, prunes, sesame seeds or poppy seeds, plus pastries and cakes, mainly from yeast dough.