5 months Ago
Bake Five, which is a group of five family baker’s companies and controls 25 percent of the market for bread in the country, sees the contract as an essential part of its business plan and was left with a great deal of financial uncertainty. Bakkerij Goedhart, which already provides the bread for Albert Heijn and accounts for 40% of the market, has won the new contract.
Shake-Up in the Industry and Ugly Costs
The strategy is a big shakeup in the industrial bread sector, where Jumbo has been moving aggressively to pare costs in the face of inflation and diminishing retail margins. Bake Five’s daily deliveries of its bread throughout the country to Jumbo outlets, would stop, presenting a major threat to Bake Five’s possibility of survival.
Jumbo has recently had conflicts with other suppliers, like Heineken and Douwe Egberts, over pricing. Both products disappeared temporarily from shelves, reflecting the retailer’s hardball approach to supplier meetings.
Neither company has released plans to offset the situation for workers, but the fate of 700 bakery workers remains unknown as the sector prepares for change.
