As of: February 29, 2024, 4:20 p.m
By: Romina Kunze
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Put the rolls in the oven at 2 a.m.?
Not in a Breisgau bakery.
A bread sommelier fights against convention - and can hardly save himself from applicants.
Freiburg – Lazy, demanding and spoiled;
Generation Z workers don't have the best reputation.
Complaining videos about a 40-hour week on TikTok do anything but clear up the image.
According to a study, above all, the salary has to be right - otherwise the termination will quickly end up in the boss's office.
It doesn't seem surprising that the bakery industry is lacking young talent.
Here the working day often starts at 2 a.m.
A master baker from Breisgau has recognized the signs of the times and broken with traditions.
While others in the guild are already halfway through their shift, here the alarm clock is just ringing.
Skilled labor shortage?
A foreign word for him.
“Everything doesn’t have to stay the way it used to be”: Gen-Z bakeries are taking a different approach – with success
“Everything doesn’t have to stay the same, just because it’s always been that way,” says Till Gurka, probably the most innovative baker in Germany.
In his Freiburg bakery, the first loaves of bread are only taken out of the oven around 9 a.m. - in most other bakeries they have already been over the counter by then.
In general, the processes at “Till und Brot” are different.
It opens at 11 a.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. on Saturdays.
Service usually doesn't start before 7. The range is deliberately small; the certified bread sommelier specializes primarily in sourdough breads.
There are five different ones and the offering changes depending on the days of the week.
And the customers?
According to the Freiburger Stadtmagazin
report, there is
a queue in front of the store.
Rumor has it in Breisgau that a former national football coach is also a regular guest at “Till und Brot”.
“I get more applications than I can hire”: The trend around a shortage of skilled workers is stopping at the Gen-Z bakery
The bread sommelier - a title based on wine connoisseurs that requires an examination and a master's certificate - is similarly popular with applicants who want to learn the craft.
While the overall number of trainees in the industry has been declining for years, his training positions for this year and next have long been filled.
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“I get more applications than I can hire,” says Gurka, while elsewhere there is a desperate search for new skilled workers.
In 2022, the Central Association of the German Bakery Trade had 10,846 apprentices; around 10 years ago, well over 18,000 wanted to learn the profession.
Do the unchristian working hours scare many young people away?
Outdated working methods?
Being a baker “just doesn’t offer a good work-life balance”
Keyword: word-life balance.
Anyone who has to operate the oven at 2 a.m. can rarely go out with friends the evening before.
At least that was the case with bread sommelier Gurka, who trained as a baker at the age of 15.
“At some point I didn’t have many friends anymore.
If you always work when everyone else is out and then sleep half the day, that's simply not a good work-life balance for a young person," Gurka explains to
focus.de
.
Things were supposed to be different in his bakery, which he opened in 2020.
The employees thank him.
And mostly consist of younger employees.
The average age at “Till und Brot” is 26 years.
The young bread sommelier is in a similar vein to an entrepreneur who advocates personality over productivity on TikTok.
And a top economist is also of the opinion that we could learn something from Gen Z in this regard.
However, studies show that the desire for a better work-life balance, for example through a four-day week, does not only come from Gen Z.