Hahn Bakery customers will also be able to purchase fresh bread and baked goods outside of store opening hours, from new vending machines installed outside the shops to boost availability and sustainability, at discounted prices. This is the first bread sales system of this kind in Lower Bavaria and Upper Palatinate, the sales area of the Hahn Bakery. The first machine called Sustainability Box was set up in front of the specialist store in Salching in February. After a test phase in Salching, vending machines will follow at other Hahn Bakery locations.

“The active and sustainable use of our products is very important to us,” said Rudolf Hahn, fourth-generation managing director. The bakery is working on new concepts and ideas to use its products as efficiently as possible, one of them being the vending machines. “This gives our customers the opportunity to purchase our fresh bread and baked goods at any time of the day or night and at a discount of up to 30%. On the one hand, we can reduce the volume of our returned goods and, on the other hand, our customers benefit from higher service quality,” explains Maximilian Hahn, fifth-generation managing director.

The bakery has already taken several steps to actively combat food waste. The family business currently has collaborations with three organizations that distribute the returned goods, products that are sent back to the bakery in Geiselhöring every day from over 60 specialist shops. Twice a week ‘Die Tafel’ and three times a week food rescuers from the Foodsharing organization pick up bread and baked goods for further distribution. The ‘Rengschburger Herzen’ association also distributes food to needy seniors every 14 days.

Another part of the returned goods is used as livestock feed for agriculture and delivered to a certified feed company. Products that are no longer suitable for consumption are put into biogas plants and thus recovered as energy. “We don’t throw anything away. On the contrary, we actively looked for ways to continue using our unsold goods,” says Benedikt Hahn, also a fifth-generation managing director.

Photo: Hahn Bakery