Magazine: Transforming bakery industry

József Septe
president
Hungarian Bakers’ Association

József Septe, president of the Hungarian Bakers’ Association informed that the number of currently active 900 bakery enterprises is expected to decrease to 500 by 2023. At the moment these bakeries utilise only 70-80 of their production capacities – this works against their efficiency and profitability. There are 4 large bakery businesses at the moment, but in the future 90 percent of production will be realised by 5-6 large bakeries.

Shoppers are focusing much more on quality and healthy ingredients than before when buying baked goods. In 2020 Hungary imported EUR 273.1 million worth of breads and other bakery items, while our export represented a value of EUR 105.8 million. In the last five years more than half of small bakeries went out of business. Selling is just as important – or perhaps even more important – than manufacturing quality baked goods. Bakeries that sell to multinational companies must make lots of compromises and cope with many uncertainties. For a bakery selling its own products is a more reliable direction to go and planning is also easier this way. The association has been trying to convince bakeries for years that it is more profitable to make fewer products but in better quality.

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The above article has also been published in Issue 2021/12-01 of Trade magazin.