About Allgemeine BäckerZeitung

Allgemeine BäckerZeitung

The Allgemeine BäckerZeitung (ABZ) is the specialist newspaper for the German baking trade, published fortnightly by the Matthaes Verlag in Stuttgart since 1948. Subtitled "the specialist organ for the bakery craft" in the German-speaking world, it serves the entire baking industry — craft bakeries, bakery chains, suppliers, and the confectionery trade — with practice-oriented reporting on market opportunities, technology, raw materials, law and business management. A continuation of the older Bäcker- und Konditoren-Zeitung, it absorbed competing titles such as Top Back and Der Bäckermeister in the late 20th century and publishes supplements including ABZ-Plus, Snack and the Bäcker Guide. Its online portal at abzonline.de, described as the highest-reach specialist portal for the baking sector, is complemented by a weekly newsletter.

Overview

The German bakery trade — some 9,000-plus craft bakeries with tens of thousands of outlets, alongside industrial producers and the in-store bakeries of the food retail chains — is one of the country's most traditional yet most pressured craft sectors. The Allgemeine BäckerZeitung addresses this trade as a whole: master bakers and bakery owners, managers of larger operations, apprentices and trainees, suppliers of flour, ingredients, ovens and shopfitting, and the associations that organize the craft. Its editorial mission, as the publisher defines it, is to show bakers market opportunities through practical contributions with high utility value.

The paper's fortnightly rhythm suits a trade that plans in weeks and seasons: raw-material prices, energy costs, consumer trends and regulatory changes arrive continuously, and the ABZ filters them for bakery relevance. Coverage spans the full professional reality of the modern bakery — from dough technology and oven innovations to shop design, snack concepts, hygiene regulations, labor law, vocational training and succession planning. The supplements extend the brand into adjacent needs: ABZ-Plus for in-depth topics, Snack and Snacks das Magazin for the growing out-of-home and convenience segment, and the Bäcker Guide as a reference work. The weekly newsletter and the abzonline.de portal carry the brand into daily digital use, giving the fortnightly print paper a continuous online presence.

History

The Allgemeine BäckerZeitung was founded in 1948, in the hunger years of postwar Germany, as the successor to the older Bäcker- und Konditoren-Zeitung. Bread was politics in 1948 — rationing, grain supply and the currency reform made the baker's craft a matter of public survival — and a trade paper for bakers addressed an industry rebuilding from rubble. The publisher was the Matthaes Verlag in Stuttgart, a specialist publishing house founded in 1905 by Hugo Matthaes, which had built its program around craft-trade journals including the butchers' and painters' papers. After the war, Matthaes rebuilt from 1946 and launched a series of trade titles: the Allgemeine Hotel- und Gaststätten-Zeitung (later AHGZ), Konditorei und Café, and the Allgemeine Bäcker-Zeitung in 1947-48.

The paper appeared weekly at first, later settling into its fortnightly rhythm. Through the Wirtschaftswunder decades, it accompanied the bakery trade's transformation: the mechanization of dough production, the rise of bake-off and frozen-dough systems, the concentration of the retail landscape, and the growing competition from industrial bread and supermarket bake stations. In the late 20th century, the ABZ consolidated its market position by absorbing rival titles — Top Back and Der Bäckermeister went into the ABZ — becoming the undisputed leading paper of the trade.

Ownership evolved with the German specialist-press landscape: in spring 2004, the Verlagsgruppe Deutscher Fachverlag (dfv) of Frankfurt acquired a majority stake in the Matthaes Verlag, integrating the ABZ into one of Germany's largest trade-publishing groups while maintaining the Stuttgart editorial base. Editorial leadership changed in 2010, when Manfred Fischer took over as editor-in-chief from Werner Kräling, who had given the paper what the publisher called a convincing, innovative editorial concept. Through the digital transformation, the paper built its online portal and newsletter into what trade-press observers describe as the sector's highest-reach digital offering.

Coverage and Content

The ABZ's content is organized around the bakery's business reality. Market and economics coverage tracks the forces reshaping the trade: raw-material and energy prices, the competitive pressure from discounters' bake stations and industrial producers, the economics of the snack business, and the structural trend toward fewer, larger craft bakeries. Technology coverage follows oven and dough-processing innovations, automation, digitalization of production and sales, and energy efficiency — increasingly critical as energy costs have become a decisive factor in bakery economics.

Raw-material and product coverage addresses flour quality, grain harvests, ingredients and the product trends — from traditional loaves to protein breads, vegan snacks and regional specialties — with which bakeries differentiate themselves. The craft's regulatory environment gets standing attention: hygiene rules, labeling requirements, labor law, vocational training regulations and food law, all translated into practical guidance for bakery owners. Business management topics — shop design, marketing, staff recruitment and retention, succession planning, financing — address the entrepreneurial side of the master baker's role.

The supplements serve focused needs: ABZ-Plus delivers in-depth treatment of special topics, Snack and Snacks das Magazin cover the convenience and out-of-home segment that has become a growth driver for bakeries, and the Bäcker Guide functions as a reference. Informative contributions on hygiene, cleaning and professional clothing round out the offering. The weekly newsletter distills the week's industry news for digital readers, while the print paper's longer formats provide the analysis and background.

Organization and Ownership

The Allgemeine BäckerZeitung is published by the Matthaes Verlag GmbH in Stuttgart (Silberburgstrasse 122, 70176 Stuttgart), a specialist publishing house founded in 1905 and majority-owned since 2004 by the Verlagsgruppe Deutscher Fachverlag (dfv) of Frankfurt am Main — one of Germany's leading trade publishers, whose portfolio includes the AHGZ hospitality paper and numerous other specialist titles. The dfv majority stake integrated Matthaes into a larger publishing group while preserving its Stuttgart identity and craft-trade focus.

Editorially, the paper is led by editor-in-chief Manfred Fischer, who took the position in July 2010, succeeding Werner Kräling. The editorial team combines trade journalists with contributors from the bakery industry — technologists, master bakers, association experts and legal specialists — giving the paper its practical orientation. The advertising side serves the bakery supply industry: oven and machinery manufacturers, flour mills, ingredient suppliers, shopfitters and service providers, for whom the ABZ's concentrated trade readership is the reference medium. The media data documents the paper's advertising formats across print, supplements, online and newsletter.

Digital Presence

The paper's digital home is abzonline.de, the specialist portal for the baking industry, which the publisher describes as the sector's highest-reach online offering. The portal carries daily industry news, product information, event coverage and the digital extensions of the print paper's content, serving readers who need bakery news faster than the fortnightly print rhythm allows. The weekly newsletter delivers the week's key stories to subscribers' inboxes, functioning as the trade's regular digital briefing.

The e-paper edition serves subscribers who read the fortnightly issue digitally, and the portal's archive provides a searchable record of the trade's recent history. On social media, the paper maintains channels for news distribution and community engagement with bakery professionals. The digital strategy follows the logic of the trade-press transformation: the print paper remains the curated, in-depth medium with its supplements and reference value, while the portal and newsletter provide the daily news flow and the interactive services — job listings, event calendars, supplier directories — that make a trade portal indispensable. After more than 75 years, the Allgemeine BäckerZeitung operates as the bakery trade's cross-media information system: fortnightly in print, daily online, and weekly in the newsletter that lands in the baker's inbox.