"Can't bake bread shorter and colder": Bakers report on their difficult everyday life

Created: 05/01/2023, 19:00

By: Patrick Staar

Korbinian Gerg (left) learns how to bake bread in Michael Detter's bakery.

The 15-year-old recently started an apprenticeship at the Tölz company.

© arp

The bakeries are struggling with high energy costs, bureaucracy and a lack of staff.

Here three bakers from Tölz, Bichl and Geretsried tell how difficult the whole situation is for them.

Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen – Rising energy and raw material costs, an extreme lack of staff, excessive bureaucracy, problems when looking for a successor: the bakeries are struggling with many problems.

The master bakers Michael Detter from Bad Tölz, Josef Eberl from Bichl and Ludwig Schmid from Geretsried spoke with the member of the Bundestag Alexander Radwan and the mayor of Tölz Ingo Mehner about the challenges their companies are facing.

Detter warns: “Bakeries that close will no longer open.

If such handicraft businesses disappear, the market street will only be a backdrop for tourists.”

Gas prices rose 1500 percent

After the start of the Ukraine war, the gas price rose by 1,500 percent at times, Detter recalls.

"Fortunately, we have a long-term contract with the public utility company.

Such price increases can no longer be passed on to baked goods.” Ludwig Schmid agrees.

With rising energy costs, bakeries' hands are tied: "I can take colder and shorter showers.

But I can't bake the bread ten degrees colder and ten minutes shorter,” says the managing director of Geretsrieder Schmid-Bäck'.

He knows a number of colleagues who have closed or will close their businesses for this reason.

Unequal treatment with other industries

In addition, bakeries have to pay more for loans than companies in other sectors.

The reason for this is a financing regulation that goes back to an initiative of the EU and was decided by the Bundestag.

"There is an evaluation score that says how sustainable certain sectors are," explains Schmid.

"Bakeries do poorly because they have an increased energy requirement and use up natural resources." Bakeries also do poorly when it comes to working hours and the so-called governance factors.

The reason: On average, women earn less than men in the bakery trade.

"Everyone gets the same wage for the same work," says Schmid.

“But there are very few master bakers.

And shop assistants earn less than master bakers.” It is politically desired,

Informed themselves about the problems of the bakers: The mayor of Tölz Ingo Mehner (2nd from left) and the member of parliament Alexander Radwan (right) with the master bakers Josef Eberl (left), Ludwig Schmid (middle) and Michael Detter ( 2nd from right).

© private

Eberl: "The big ones are spared, and we little ones are knocked out"

Above all, Josef Eberl denounces the unequal treatment of large and small companies.

For example, the electricity price for industrial companies is capped at ten cents per kilowatt hour, but for small companies it is capped at 40 cents: "The big ones are spared, and we little ones are hammered into the pan," complains Eberl.

There are many other examples of unequal treatment.

Electronic cash register reading is mandatory in bakeries, but not in ice cream parlors.

In addition, the reusable rule applies in a bakery with a sales area of ​​more than 80 square meters, but not at a kebab stand.

"I could only get upset," says Eberl.

"The next three governments shouldn't really have to do anything other than deal with unequal treatment."

Detter: "I stand behind the goods with my name"

Michael Detter's criticism goes in a similar direction.

He is particularly bothered by the "documentation mania": "We have to make everything transparent - from the cleaning plan to the goods inspection.

But you don't meet the black sheep in the industry." As the owner of a small workshop, he knows every farmer who supplies him, every miller and every truck driver: "In Tölz, everyone knows each other.

If I did any shit, I would not only lose something financially, but also my face.

I stand behind the goods with my name - I can't afford something like that."

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The empty labor market is also causing headaches for companies.

The Bichler Bäckerei Eberl is currently missing two bakers, two confectioners and two saleswomen.

"We just can't get people here," says Eberl.

“The journeymen get master wages from us.

Ludwig Schmid confirms: "As a master baker, you get a decent wage for decent work." Without bonuses, you can count on at least 20 euros per hour.

There are also leisure and tax-free night supplements.

One reason for the lack of staff is probably the working hours, which are considered unattractive - which Michael Detter cannot understand, however.

His working day starts at 2.30 a.m., so he finishes work in the morning: “Of course you have to be a night person.

I can go skiing or go to the authorities in the morning for that – others would have to take time off for that.”

Schmid: "There is no better job"

Apart from that, a baker is a “beautiful, fulfilling profession”.

Ludwig Schmid also sees it this way: “You make a product with your own hands that fills people up and makes them happy.

For me, there's nothing nicer." He wrote a "fairly good" high school diploma and could have taken up almost any other profession: "But I became a baker quite consciously.

And I would make the same decision again.” Despite all the problems.

Radwan criticizes federal government

"One gets the impression that the worries of the trades are not known to the federal government," commented CSU member of the Bundestag Alexander Radwan: "We constantly hear about double and triple boom and amounts in the billions, but de facto there has not been a single noticeable one so far Relief for the craft.

The energy cost containment program was supposed to support energy-intensive companies, but any normal artisan baker is left out.”

Mayor Ingo Mehner adds: “Crafts and small and medium-sized businesses are our economic backbone.

I don't want to imagine what Bad Tölz would look like without a baker and butcher.

In the crisis, federal politics now has great pressure to act to maintain this regionality and to secure the medium-sized structures permanently.”

By the way: Everything from the region is now also available in our regular Bad Tölz newsletter.

You can find more current news from the region around Bad Tölz at Merkur.de/Bad Tölz.