Bread for the City | Organic Baking Goods

Not every Berliner has an organic bakery right around the corner, which is why many of them sidestep the problem by heading to their local Bioladen when it's time for carbohydrates. But where does the bread actually come from? In most cases, from a company called Märkisches Landbrot. A market leader in bread delivery, Märkisches Landbrot has its roots in the collective movement of the 70's and stayed true to its ideals to this day. It supplies close to all large organic supermarket chains, but also smaller stores. Today, the company resides in Neukölln near Grenzallee in a building covered with vines and solar panels.

“The bakery has been here since 1930” says Joachim Weckmann, one of the two owners. “When I bought it in 1981, they were almost bankrupt.” Weckmann altered the production process so it would adhere to bioland regulations, and when Demeter grain from Brandenburg became available in 1991, the Demeter certificate was quick to follow.  The grain was ground and turned into flour on site, a concept that proved initially successful. “We had good growth rates from the beginning on. At first, our customers were mainly students, freaks and hippies” remembers Weckmann. “Today organic food is mainstream, but still, organic bread made in Berlin only makes up six percent of the total”.

To make that number rise, Weckmann works closely with other organic bakeries in Berlin and Brandenburg, and co-founded the “fair und regional” certificate with regional organic farms. “The farmers need long-term commitments. If they decide to grow a certain crop then they can rely on us to buy it off them.” The initiative encourages farming old types of grain like champagne rye, which flourishes on local fields in the wake of global warming.

Another project was the relaunch of sunflower seed production in Brandenburg. Right now, the areas surrounding Berlin produce primarily sun flowers for oil – which brings in more profit for farmers because local sunflower seeds are more expensive than imported ones and harder to sell. “The locally grown sunflower seeds are twice as expensive as those imported from China, but we still find the project important”, said Weckmann.  Their no-compromises approach stretches out towards the water used in production. “Water makes up 40 percent of a bread's raw material, so it's the second most important raw material” explained Weckmann. That is why the water for his baked goods comes from an on-site well with its own source of water.

Märkisches Landbrot employs 20 bakers, but for the large quantities of bread produced here on a daily basis, they need to rely on machines. “There is no type of bread that is produced exclusively by machines”, said Weckmann. Many bread types couldn't be produced if it weren't for handiwork. “Whole wheat is hard to process, especially without improving agents. You need a lot of water, which is why the dough would only stick if they were used in a machine” explained the expert. Despite his refusal to compromise during the production process, Weckmann doesn't generally dismiss conventionally produced baking goods. “There are high quality products that come out of that, but you have to read the fine print. And you need to know that according to the German food labelling ordenance, there are up to 124 additives that don't even need to be declared.”

(azi)