action with fresh strategies

With its headquarters in Pirmasens, Germany, WASGAU Produktions & Handels AG operates 80 food markets with a regional focus. Its own bakery produces fresh baked goods and frozen goods for the branches, and these are sold in the checkout zone.

+WASGAU Produktions & Handels AG employs nearly 4,000 staff and generated sales of around EUR 513m in 2015. Its own butcher and its own bakery supply goods to around 80 supermarkets. At the same time, the company describes itself as entirely down-to-earth – although always coupled with new ideas and fresh strategies to allow it to constantly offer customers a new shopping experience. The company invests continuously for this purpose. In recent years, for example, more than EUR 25m has gone just into renewing the baked goods production facility and into sales and building shops. Managing Director Sascha Kieninger explains that “Modern production and control structures allow further increases in market shares and an improvement of the competitive position. Moreover, the baked goods product range is constantly adapted to comply with consumers’ wishes.” For example it has its own newly developed products with ancient grain, and wood oven breads are also enjoying growing popularity. Jürgen Landoll has played a decisive role in developing the new products. As Production Manager, the food technologist bears responsibility at WASGAU Bäckerei & Konditorei GmbH.

Expanding production

The bakery has grown steadily in recent years, and now covers an area of around 8,000 m 2. The production unit is divided spatially and logistically into two parts. The employees in one zone produce only frozen goods, while fresh baked products are manufactured in the other part. This means approx. 40% of fresh baked products and around 60% frozen goods leave the Pirmasens production facility. Work takes place in two shifts, in the course of which the bakery staff use around 500 tons of flour per month. The entire product range comprises approx. 110 different products and is constantly adapted. Jürgen Landoll explains that “Customers want variety, especially in the pastry area.” However, one of the best-selling products are rose rolls, which are known as “Feierabendbrötchen” (dinner rolls). But as well as feierabendbrötchen, Pirmasens also produces up to 6,000 lye pretzels per hour, looped by hand, as well as a few pastries and baguettes, which are produced as frozen dough pieces and delivered frozen to the branches. The staff have a total of four lines at their disposal.

After packing, the frozen baked goods go into the automatic frozen food warehouse, which was modernized in 2015. A pallet shuttle was installed at the same time, and this brings pallets into and out of storage up to five deep. The shuttle’s energy management is ensured by super-caps, which do away with both the conductor rails in each channel and the cable systems that were formerly used.

In addition to the existing plants from König, Fritsch and Diosna, Production Manager Landoll’s next investment in the frozen products area is already planned: he intends to invest in new Sancassiano Spa mixers. They will be hydramixers from Italy, with a special mixing tool. The frequencycontrolled plants convinced Landoll during baking and mixing trials in the company’s own bakery on the spot by their low level of dough warming and a larger amount of water added to the dough.

Artisan production

The fresh baked products area has a total of seven lines, although many baked goods are made up by hand. As well as 12 roll-in e+ rack ovens from Miwe, the bakery has also invested in new Häussler wood-fired ovens due to the growing demand for these breads. The production unit now has a total of three wood-burning multi-deck ovens, each with two decks. The consumption of pellets for the wood-fired ovens nowadays is around six tons per month.

The occupancy of the plants in the whole of the production unit is approx. 80%. As well as buying new LED lamps for the bakery, firstly for better illumination and secondly to save energy, Managing Director Sascha Kieninger and Production Manager Jürgen Landoll have invested in a new crate washing plant complete with logistics and a crate store from the psb GmbH in Pirmasens. A heat recovery installation heats water for the system, which is then stored in a buffer tank and fed to the basket washing plant. The washing plant operates fully automatically and cleans standard baskets with water at a temperature of 92°C. After washing, each basket has a maximum residual moisture of two grams, and is conveyed into a store that has space for 14,700 baskets.

Goods distribution

Distribution of the baked goods operates using a toolbox system. The dispatch area employees are guided when distributing goods by displays on the distribution area ceiling. After that, up to 65 of the group’s own trucks bring the baked products to branches in Wasgau supermarkets. Bakery Managing Director Sascha Kieninger explains that “We depend on the latest generation of trucks with low emissions when distributing goods, because we want to contribute actively to environmental protection in that way.” One of the customers for the baked products is a new concept market in Pirmasens, which was reopened only in late 2016 after a rebuild, where various new ideas can be trialed, e.g. focusing on the gastronomy area. There is a lot of customer seating in the checkout zone, where they can order fresh pizza or pasta, for example, as well as hot and cold drinks. Jürgen Landoll explains that “It’s also how we want to distinguish ourselves from the discounters.” In that way, the plan is for the bakery’s branches in supermarkets to develop into a gastronomic rendezvous, because this area still offers potential for growth. Regarding the breakdown of sales by product range, Managing Director Kieninger explains that the proportion of bread is 25%, rolls make up 24% of sales, pastries account for 28% and gastronomy has a 15% share. Added to this are trade goods and beverages, which are bought by a daily average of around 38,000 customers. Customers are still able to buy baked products only in the checkout bakeries in Wasgau supermarkets, but Jürgen Landoll and Sascha Kieninger can well imagine their own independent bakery branch, or taking over locations if a good opportunity arises. Otherwise the pair want to remain with down-to-earth trading coupled with fresh strategies and further enlargement of the existing sites. +++

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