Nowakowski 4.0

The Nowakowski family has operated baking businesses in Poland for four generations. In the process, the family acquired a remarkable flair for the development of European markets. The most recent business produces artisanal, additive-free frozen products in wood-fired ovens.

Head of Production Waldemar Jaczewski and Łukasz Nowakowski, who is responsible for sales , currently focus on four product ranges: hearth-baked breads, small panned breads, yeast-raised cakes and hand-topped pizzas with a diameter of 1 4 and 28 cm. The incentive here, namely to opt for quality equal to that of handmade products and to bake specialties instead of mass-produced goods, originated from the market. As in the whole of Europe, there is also a class of consumers in Poland who want to return to authentic baked goods made from selected raw materials, a significant reduction in the use of yeast and in salt content, and of course entirely free from additives, including enzymes. There is also a group of buyers, as there is everywhere in Europe, who are also willing to pay a higher price than for ordinary mass-produced products. Retail groups operating throughout Europe also know this.

When Nowakowski Piekarnie commenced production just over a year ago in Kolonia Kepaczka, a small town three hours’ drive southwest of Warsaw, 20,000 m2 of production space was available to them, plus a frozen food store for 5,000 pallets. It contained four lines for the four product families, leading to two large wood-fired ovens, with the exception of cakes. The two cousins inspected various bakeries before making the investment. A wood-heated tunnel of this kind is used by a baker in Baden near Zürich, who is noted far beyond Switzerland’s borders for the quality of his products. They also adopted his plea for artisan manual work at the important points.