“Because of energy, wage, and increasingly expensive raw material costs, we currently have to pay around €100,000 to €120,000 more per month than we had to in 2021,” says Jean-Marie Hoffmann, runner-up in the world pastry championship and founder of the bakery chain bearing his name.
Since bakers have to limit the amount of costs passed on to their customers, businesses are now increasingly trying to come up with new ways of growing their revenue. A popular avenue for them is to offer catering services and delicatessen. However, it is mostly larger shops that are able to expand their offer.
The other problem facing bakers is the renewal of the profession. “Society has changed”, argues Hoffmann. “Young people pay more attention to the balance between their private and professional lives and are less inclined to get up in the middle of the night to go to work.”
In January, La Table du Pain declared bankruptcy. The two locations Luxembourg City, one a longtime stalwart of the City Centre lunch scene and the other a fixture of the Gare district at Place de Paris, closed down after 25 years of business.
