Baked goods are booming for the Fornetti Group. 25 years since starting as a single bakery in Hungary, the company now has a strong presence across Central and Eastern Europe. Emerging from the Covid pandemic in time to celebrate its birth day, it continues to flourish by remaining innovative, pragmatic, and ahead of the curve. Speaking to Hannah Barnett, General Manager Attila Bánhidi reflected on Fornetti’s quarter of a century in the bakery business.
When it comes to the manufacturing and distribution of baked goods, the Fornetti Group are a big deal. The com pany operates in various forms across 17 European countries. It has a large number of franchise bakery outlets as well as selling its wares in the retail sector. The range of over 200 different products are created and handled in its factories in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria.
What is it about them that makes them both popular and enduring? Attila Bánhidi, General Manager of the Fornetti Group is succinct in his response: “Freshness, energy, love that's what we say on our bags, and we take these characteristics to be our guiding principles.”
Fornetti may operate on a large scale, but it still maintains regional touches. Mr Bánhidi expanded on these variants: “In Romania our pastries are made with telemea, a kind of local cheese. In Hungary, we have several hit products, such as Girella , p each and cottage cheese pastries, or even the scones, which have been our most popular product for 25 years.”
Despite boasting firm favourites and brand staples across its range, Fornetti do not rely on simply churning out the classics year after year. Mr Bánhidi described the company’s product development as ‘continuous and creative’, remaining at the cut ting edge: “every year, or even every quarter, we are able to launch new products, both permanent and seasonal, to attract new customers.” The success and longevity of the Fornetti Group did not come from resting on its laurels.
This is not to say consistency is not important too. According to Mr Bánhidi, another of the secrets to the company’s 25 years of success lies in a perception of stability that exists across the brand. A customer knows what to expect from a Fornetti product. “Fornetti produces the same quality at every baking point, at every time of day, and we do not compromise on this,” he explained.
25 years young
The internet was still in its infancy when The Fornetti Group began, but social media proved one of the key tools at the company’s disposal when it came to celebrating its 25th birthday in 2022. Launching a major campaign across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, it used fun, colourful and accessible images to mark the milestone and cement its place as a modern company.
Mr Bánhidi explained that this campaign was intended as an all-inclusive, welcoming affair: “We tried to communicate the occasion on as many platforms as possible, in as innovative a way as possible, so that our customers could get a broader picture of the journey we have made over the last quarter of a century.”
Alongside this, Fornetti also held a large-scale partner meeting and dinner in Budapest in September, attended by over 400 guests. The event was intended in part to thank the company’s network of partners and suppliers. As Mr Bánhidi acknowledged, “without them we could not do it. The Fornetti Group would not have achieved the level of success which characterises us today.”
Overcoming adversity, setting trends
Across all industries, one of the most significant challenges of the last 25 years arrived recently, in the form of the Covid pandemic. The Fornetti Group survived the worst of it relatively unscathed, according to Mr Bánhidi opening ‘hundreds’ of new outlets in Romania and Hungary between 2020 and 2022, slap bang in the middle of the ‘pandemic years.’ Alongside global supply chain
i ssues and economic instability, though, he accepts that the future is ‘somewhat unpredictable.’
The company survived Covid and looks in good stead to over come other challenges because of its pragmatic approach. As Mr Bánhidi said: “We are always ready to review our strategic vision and, if we see fit, to change and start working with a new methodology. Adaptability is of the utmost importance, as only those companies that are able to cope with sudden challenges can survive.”
Sudden challenges did not come more quickly than the start of the pandemic and the nationwide lockdowns that followed, but it made perfect sense for the company to launch a ‘Bake at Home ’ range and accompanying campaign at that moment.
True to innovative form, 2020 was also the year the Fornetti Group launched its vegan hot dog. A menu inclusive of a range of dietary requirements is something many food producers are nowadays embracing but Mr Bánhidi is confident that Fornetti remains, as ever, ahead of the game. He expressed a commit ment to constantly expanding its range to cater for “vegan, gluten free, low carb, and other dietary requirements.” Despite the growing market for these products Mr Bánhidi says the com pany is quietly confident it ‘will not be beaten’.
Here's to 25 more It is no surprise that product development is an area Mr Bánhidi described as close to his heart. The General Manager spoke confi dently of the company’s commitment to innovation: “Everybody is
looking for the extraordinary, the unique; and everyone wants to have an ever-expanding, stronger market presence. But the Fornetti Group is hard to catch up with, because we don't follow trends, we dictate them.”
Looking ahead from this jubilee year, Mr Bánhidi paints a pic ture of a company keen to expand its reach ever further, confident in its products to the end: “We don't divide the world into dif ferent categories according to different criteria, we share common values and a common journey. The only exception to this division is that we see only two camps in the world: the Fornetti lovers and those who have not tasted our products yet”. n
