Food - Trade unionists: bakery sector must realign itself
Following the insolvency of the Lila Bäcker bakery chain, trade unionist Jörg Dahms has called for a rethink in the industry. "The industry needs to realign itself, because otherwise it has no chance against the supermarkets," said the managing director of the Food, Beverages and Catering Union (NGG) in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Wednesday. "Because people simply have less money in their pockets." The reason is inflation.
Customers are asking themselves what they are spending their money on when, for example, six Berliners cost 1.90 euros in the supermarket and a single one sometimes costs 2.50 euros in the Lila Bäcker. "If you offer the same thing as in the supermarket for a different price, then you shouldn't be surprised that it doesn't go any further."
How bakers can position themselves in the future is "damn hard to answer", said Dahms. In future, they may have to focus less on mass production and more on locally available specialties and natural products without additives, so that customers actually feel rewarded when they go into a bakery. "It could be that the large-scale nature of the bakery trade has come to an end."
On Tuesday, the insolvent bakery chain Lila Bäcker announced the closure of around a third of its 230 branches and the dismissal of around 500 of its 1,600 employees. Insolvency proceedings were opened on January 1. Previously, efforts to restructure the company under self-administration had failed.
The company, which has branches in Brandenburg, Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, cited crises caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, increased raw material, energy and wage costs, and customer reluctance due to inflation. Lila Bäcker had already been relaunched in 2019 following insolvency.
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Source: www.stern.de
