You can get bread not only in the bakery, but also in supermarkets and discounters such as Aldi, Lidl or Edeka. But what actually happens after the shop closes with the unsold bread and rolls?
Nothing is eaten more frequently by consumers in Germany than bread and rolls. Whether in the office, on the road or at home with the family: more than 90 percent of Germans consume bread or other baked goods every day.
According to exclusive FOCUS information, bread rolls at Aldi Süd, Aldi Nord, Lidl, Penny and Co. are among the five most popular products that customers like to put in their shopping carts. Supermarkets and discounters have thus found an important source of income. They offer more and more baked dough pieces and also supply customers with unusual types of bread.
For a snack between meals there is pizza, croissants, pretzel sticks or wholemeal rolls. The range of breads includes multigrain, wheat or mixed potato bread. The prices for this are particularly low, since the discounters and supermarkets produce in large quantities or have them produced.
But what happens to the bread that isn’t sold after the shop closes?
On request, Aldi, Lidl, Penny and Norma explain that they can usually control the sale of bread parts well. This way, employees know exactly when they should fire up the oven for the last time of the day.
“For the freshly baked goods, each branch works with a so-called baking scheme,” writes the Lidl press, for example. Employees are guided by demand. The fewer products sold during the day, the less is baked.
“Both in our branches with a baking machine and in our Backwelt branches with a manual baking system, IT support is used that calculates the expected sales and thus supports our employees in baking as needed.
Pieces of bread that are not sold before closing time are offered to customers at a reduced price the following day. The bread products are well marked, notes the Rewe discounter Penny.
Aldi Süd, Aldi Nord, Norma, Lidl, Rewe and Edeka also work according to this scheme. Customers get discounts of up to 30 percent. “The offer is very well received,” writes Rewe. Packaged baked goods also benefit social institutions and sponsors from all discounters and supermarkets requested. These include food banks and food sharing.
“We give baked goods that are no longer salable and can no longer be donated to processing companies. They use them, among other things, to produce animal feed,” says a press spokesman for Lidl. The remains are also used in biogas plants to produce raw biogas and biomethane. Edeka, in turn, also processes the bread into breadcrumbs.
This article first appeared on CHIP.de.
