With Scandinavian bread recipes dating back to the age of the Vikings, perhaps to the dawn of Scandinavian history, Sweden's Polarbageriet the Polar Bakery has found a new approach to passing these traditions on to a new generation of consumers: using the very latest freezer technology.
Polarbageriet is family-owned company from northern Sweden, already entering its fourth generation. One of their plants is in fact located near the village of Bredbyn, and not far from the site of Europe's northernmost permanent settlement at the time, around 100 AD. The bread recipes used by Polarbageriet might well be nearly as old.
"Nobody really knows how old our recipes are,“ says Christer Ögren, Bakery Manager. "But we're constantly making new variations on them, using new techniques, reaching new markets, and doing it our own way.“
Understanding Polarbageriet's success requires understanding the special mentality of the people of sparsely populated northern Sweden. aDoing it our own way' could be their motto. Local pride runs high. "It's true that our market is bigger in southern Sweden. But to relocate to get closer to more customers would be to lose our unique Polar profile. The North is important to us. Here is where we want to live and work. To be able to compete with other bakeries in the South, we have to be better and more efficient. In return, personnel turnover is very low, and the dedication of employees is unmistakable.“
The taste of success
Polarbageriet has perhaps the strongest bread brand in Sweden, and is a singularly well-run and profitable company. "I think every one of our competitors would like to buy us,“ says Christer, "including some multinationals. But we try not to pay any attention to them. They can watch us if they like. We've got our own traditions to develop.“
Consumers throughout Sweden obviously like those traditions too. Although the market for the company's ultrathin, crisp bread has abated somewhat in recent years, the appetite for Polarbageriet's slightly thicker soft bread has been growing constantly, and in the past year, sales have soared. "The crisp versus soft preference seems to be a generational thing,“ says Christer. "Naturally we're delighted to see younger people taking to the old traditions, but it places extra demands on us. Our dry, crisp products aren't so dependent on the transport chain. But our popular soft bread has to reach the consumer superfresh. That's why we freeze it!“
Polarbageriet's tradition of freezing bread is just about as old as the company itself, nearly 30 years, mostly in spiral freezers from Frigoscandia Equipment or in home-made tunnel freezers. Then in 2000, Christer Ögren heard of a new freezing technology, represented by the ADVANTE impingement freezer, also from Frigoscandia Equipment.
"At first nobody believed it was possible to freeze our kind of products in that kind of freezer,“ recalls Christer. "but Frigoscandia Equipment invited me to their Food Technology Center to run some tests.“ The results were a big success, but Christer still met some doubt back home. So he worked out a simple deal with his supplier. If the freezer failed to meet performance expectations, the purchase would be revoked. That hasn't happened. Instead, Polarbageriet has now purchased its second Advantec freezer.
The impingement freezer uses carefully controlled jets of refrigerated air to blast away the layer of heat surrounding the product within seconds.
"Our products hit the freezer directly from the oven,“ explains Christer. "The freezer nips them at once. After one meter they've already stopped giving off moisture, and moisture is critical for product quality. In the freezer they're surface-frozen in seconds, instead of 10 minutes.“ In fact, the entire process from dough to baked, frozen and packaged product is only about 35 minutes!
And consumers have noticed the quality improvement. "Our sales have risen sharply,“ says Christer, "mostly because consumers keep coming back for more.“ Polarbageriet runs about 10 product variants in the new freezers. Product handling is gentle, so there's extremely little waste. Christer Ögren estimates the payback time to be less than three years. He is also pleased that the freezer offers impeccable hygiene, even though demands on hygiene are greater in other segments of the food industry. "The demands are going to come anyway,“ foresees Christer, "and we want to stay a few steps ahead. We don't mind the authorities regarding us as role models.“
But if consumers go for the freshness of Polarbageriet's soft bread, why does the company freeze it? "Simply to keep it fresh,“ says Christer. "With our distributors, we maintain a frozen chain all the way to the retailer. The bread is only thawed hours before it reaches the shop, so it's as fresh as newly baked.“ So why not sell it in the frozen food counters? "Simply because consumers have their traditions too. They like to pinch their bread. If that's what they want, that's what we'll give them!“
The next step?
Polarbageriet is proud of its own aPolar Method', based partly on quick freezing and an unbroken frozen chain, but also on a mindset that combines endless questioning with a determination to improve constantly. So where does the company expect to go from here?
"We invest in the future, in new technology. And we're happy that consumers notice the quality of our products.“ And what about new markets? Christer concludes with characteristic Northern reticence: "Exports are probably our biggest area of future growth. But we're not in a hurry.“
For more information, visit, www.frigoscandia.com
