Wiener Feinbäckerei turns 130: Bakery shops in action

The cake is one meter high, it measures 80 centimeters in circumference and consists of the finest chocolate-vanilla cream. It is intended for the celebration of the University of Applied Sciences Frankfurt on its fiftieth birthday on Friday. The Viennese fine bakery Heberer, whose confectioners produced the gem, is celebrating quietly with the fact that company founder Georg Heberer took over a bakery on Offenbach's market square 130 years ago, which has now been family-run for five generations and has 220 branches, 90 of which are in the Rhine -Main area, one of the market leaders in Germany.

"With the cooperation with the university we would like to shift the focus", says Georg Patrick Heberer.

"We no longer see ourselves as just a traditional craft business, but strive for a transformation into the current times." For many young people at the university, craft is no longer on the agenda at all.

So the family business uses the opportunity to advertise a little for itself through the anniversary cooperation.

For weeks now, there have been flyers and posters in the branches advertising a podcast from the university with “knowledge to go” and a competition that entices coaching.

Branch becomes an experience space

Georg and his sister Sandra Heberer, both in their mid-30s, are the current managing directors of the company, both studied, she is a business economist, he is an industrial engineer. He has also passed the master craftsman's exams as a baker and confectioner. Both of them also worked in other companies before taking over their parents' business, including Porsche and Tchibo. You speak of process optimization and “important transfers from other industries” as well as you speak of yeast dough. "We take it for more than 24 hours to minimize allergies and other intolerances," says the boss.

The company is now just as broadly positioned: on the one hand, it supplies traditional breakfast rolls (more than 80 million per year), quick snacks at train stations and airports, ready-made baked goods for Rewe and Aldi Süd, and on the other, it is expanding large branches with glass show baking rooms where you can also have breakfast and brunch in the café section in a dignified atmosphere. The well-known branch at Frankfurt Kaufhof on B-level, for example, is currently being redesigned into such an experience space and will be reopened in autumn.

Uncle Alexander and father Georg Heberer IV., Managing directors of the previous generation in the family empire, continue to work as shareholders and consultants. Sandra is the first woman in the family's history to head the company and has not completed any training as a baker or confectioner. Nevertheless, she knows the baking trade inside out. “My father always said: There is nothing you don't have to be able to do,” she says. Equal opportunities for everyone, if you make the right effort. As children, they could have had all the money they wanted, "but we always had to work for it in the company," says the brother.

Joining the top management of a very traditional family business in the trade, in which the eldest sons are all called Georg and are even numbered, was "a decision made by the heart" for Sandra Heberer. Even though she first got a taste of other companies, the homesickness from Hamburg drew her back home. “The trust you have in your family is irreplaceable,” she says firmly. Whatever she suggests, she has always received support. "Only in the family business do I have all the freedom to shape and move, in other companies the responsibilities are already very strictly tailored." Her brother Georg, who is the first in the generation to leave out the ordinal number after his name - and because of the differentiation through the plain P. replaced for Patrick -,therefore sees no generation conflicts. "Of course, every generation trusts something that they have built up all their life, and parents may then think that they will continue to be the mentor for life." However, this is always discussed openly at regular family get-togethers.

Corona has not left Heberer without a trace

The Viennese Feinbäckerei Heberer is a branched company: It consists of its own branches, which are operated by commission agents, is supplemented by franchisees at large train stations and airports, and supplies major customers, restaurants and other bakers.

Heberer has expanded its core regions from the Rhine-Main area to Thuringia and Berlin since the early 1990s.

Baking takes place in Mühlheim am Main and in Zeesen near Berlin.

The third large bakery in Weimar with around 30 employees was closed at the end of last year.

“Very socially acceptable, that was very important to us,” as Georg Heberer emphasizes.

The company has 360 direct employees; if you add those of the franchise partners, there are around 1,300.

Corona with the lockdowns and the obligation to work from home did not leave Heberer unaffected: While sales in 2019 were 78.3 million euros, they were only 26 million euros in the first half of 2021. After all, you could have concluded in the plus. In July and August, however, there was a noticeable recovery, according to the company headquarters. The Viennese fine bakery with its cafes and bakeries in shopping centers and at traffic junctions benefits from the fact that more and more people in the metropolitan areas do not eat at home but rather quickly on the go. While the pure baked goods market is stagnating according to an analysis of the trade press, the demand for coffee, breakfast and snacks to take away is booming and offers the younger generation good prospects.