Andreas Haubold, Baking Emporium, Dunmanway
When I started working in rural development in 1998, one of the first documents I read about the food sector was a strategic report on the baking and confectionary sector in West Cork. The report gloomily concluded that there was a need for further rationalisation and mergers, and offered little prospect for employment growth or improved profitability. Perhaps the bakers of West Cork are the bumblebees of the food world – technically they shouldn’t be able to fly but they have defied logic with their will-power and creativity. This week I caught up with Andreas Haubold at the Baking Emporium in Dunmanway. Andreas has a trait of confidence that I’ve seen in many West Cork bakers, I think it’s a confidence that comes from knowing that your skills are wanted and useful. With the confidence of the useful man he can see past obstacles and sometimes defy logic.
Andreas and his wife Ingrid, arrived from Germany in 1982 and set up their restaurant at Bridgemount House on the edge of the town. “Some local people thought we were mad and there were always rumours that we were selling and going back. You know we started in a recession, I think businesses that start like that may be stronger for it. It was tough, we had a lot of very quiet evenings, but people still remember the food and make very positive comments. Food in Ireland has changed so much since then, you’d need help to read a menu now and understand everything that’s available, but back then most people wanted to come in eat prawn cocktail, mushroom soup and a cremated fillet steak. I had to learn some new skills too. Farmers would arrive with a trailer to sell me 5 or 6 lambs or kid goats. I had to kill them myself to save on the cost of butchering. That was an experience. Ingrid went mad when I killed goats here. We were the only restaurant in West Cork serving goat, some Irish people had travelled and tried it, I was amazed when they ordered it.”
Andreas and Ingrid closed the restaurant at midnight on New Years Eve 1999 to concentrate on the cake business they had started from the kitchen 6 years earlier. “We were making everything in the same kitchen then but the woman from the health board said ‘Andreas, you can’t carry on like that’ and she was right, we needed more space but it was going to cost too much. Then by chance we learned about the West Cork Enterprise Board – we weren’t following the news in the papers. We applied and got help to convert the garage to a bakery in 1994. We sold to coffee shops and restaurants and that grew slowly but surely for a few years. Then their costs got too high and we found we were competing with cheap frozen cakes from large factories. I can’t blame the coffee shops, their overheads got too high, especially wages. In the beginning I was in favour of the minimum wage, I thought that the basic pay for trained people in Ireland was not enough, but they shouldn’t have increased it so much. It started at £4.40 (€5.58) and now it’s €8.65. If you have an untrained person who doesn’t even speak English, mopping floors on €8.65, then you have to give the trained person much higher. I said 5 years ago when the economy was hot-hot, that costs were rising in a worrying way, but people didn’t appreciate that.”
Ingrid suggest that this might be a German trait, “Even as private people in Germany we are always talking about prices. We’ve been able to involve our employees in the business here and they are very aware of how much everything costs and how much they use.” Ingrid feels that the skills and commitment of their staff is vital. “It’s great that people stay with us a long time and some of those that leave come back again. We build up great relationships, the biggest proof of success is when we are invited to the wedding, that makes us happy. Andreas feels responsible for his ‘girls’, he’s always watching the husbands to be to see if they’re ok. The recession is a worry for us because we feel very responsible for the people we employ. Because we’re small we can find niches to survive but we’re also cautious about new opportunities. We could go after a contract to supply Dunnes Stores with 200 apple pies a week but that puts everyone at risk. We can’t become dependent on one big customer”
As the economy started to overheat the Baking Emporium had to morph again and although they still sell to a few coffee shops it was the farmers markets that kept the business going. I remind Andreas that there were far fewer markets at first and it was hard work getting to them. “Yes, we’d get up a 3.30 in the morning to be at a market in Leopardstown. We even went to sell at the Borough Market in London a few times with some of the other Fuchsia producers. You have to try things, whatever happens. Selling cakes was more and more difficult and we we needed a more staple product for the market. We decided to get into making bread. But I’m a confectioner not a bread maker. It was a new field for which we had no expertise. We brought in various baking advisors and finally got a proper baker from the continent. We focus on health breads, particularly spelt flour and natural sour dough.” The Baking Emporium have been making breads for just 4 years now but they have acquired a level of skill and quality that stretches back through the centuries.
Christian, Andreas and Ingrid’s eldest son, joins us to talk about the farmers markets. He has just taken on the role of chairman for the Thursday market in Clonakilty, but is also committed to the controversial Friday market. The Friday market has yet again been offered an unsuitable out-of-the-way location by the town council and so they continue to defy the council by trading in the most central car park. For Christian there is no question of one market winning out over the other, “I think that Clonakilty could take 3 markets and really make a name for itself as a buzzing market town. It would be one of the biggest and easiest tourist attractions the council could create. We have 3 stalls selling bread at the Thursday market and we are all still making money. Competition is not a problem, the bigger the market, the more people that will come.” It strikes me that Christian has this same natural confidence about the future and about his part in it. I’m impressed with his positive embracing vision and greatly encouraged as I sit into the car to strike for home.
