About Lecker

Lecker

Lecker is a German food and cooking magazine published by the Bauer Media Group since 1985. Produced by an editorial team in Hamburg and appearing ten times a year, it pitches itself as a young, unconventional cooking magazine: practical, trend-aware and designed for everyday use, with recipes for kitchen newcomers and experimental hobby cooks alike, plus table-decoration ideas in each issue. Wikipedia lists lecker.de as its website; the domain could not be independently verified for this profile. Per IVW figures for the fourth quarter of 2024, Lecker sold 30,632 copies per issue with a spread circulation of 36,302; its reach was measured at around 0.47 million readers in 2015.

Overview

In Germany's crowded food-magazine market, Lecker occupies the playful, youth-adjacent end of the spectrum. Where essen & trinken (see separate profile) speaks the language of gourmet culture and Landidee of country living, Lecker promises uncomplicated cooking that still feels modern: refined recipes, a cooking school for the classics, specialities from well-known professional chefs, and quick after-work ideas. The magazine's practical landscape format is explicitly designed for use in the kitchen — a detail that captures its philosophy of cooking as something to do rather than something to admire.

History

Lecker was launched by the Bauer publishing house in 1985, at a time when the German food press was still dominated by traditional housekeeping titles. The Heinrich Bauer Verlag — founded in Hamburg in 1875 by lithographer Johann Andreas Ludolph Bauer with a small printing press, and one of Europe's largest media groups today — positioned the new title as something different: younger, bolder, less housewifely. The wager worked. Through the 1990s and 2000s, as interest in cooking as a lifestyle exploded across Germany, Lecker grew into one of the country's most recognizable food magazines, its red-and-white logo a fixture of supermarket checkout lines.

The magazine's heyday coincided with the food-TV boom. In June 2010 Lecker made trade-press headlines with a special edition dedicated to the Sansibar, the legendary scene restaurant on the island of Sylt: together with the restaurant's team, editor-in-chief Jessika Brendel presented 90 recipes from head chef Dietmar Priewe — classics like Wiener Schnitzel and burnt strawberry cake — in a summery modern layout meant to capture the Sansibar atmosphere. The special edition printed 125,000 copies at 6.90 euros. At the time, regular Lecker issues were selling 139,944 copies in the first quarter of 2010, holding steady year on year — a reminder of the scale the title still commanded at its peak.

The structural crisis of German print did not spare food magazines. From the mid-2010s, sold circulation declined steadily across the segment as recipes migrated online and social media platforms became the dominant inspiration channel for cooking. By 2024, Lecker's sold circulation had fallen to around 30,600 copies — a fraction of its former heights, but in line with the broader retreat of the German newsstand.

Content and concept

Each issue of Lecker is built around the season: the cover recipes follow the calendar, from asparagus in spring to goose at Christmas, with themed features on current food trends. The magazine describes itself as trend-aware — Biscoff desserts, Korean-inspired dishes, sugar-free baking — while keeping one foot in the classics through its cooking-school sections. The 2010 Sansibar special illustrated the formula: 90 recipes from a celebrated restaurant kitchen, presented in a summery modern layout, with a print run of 125,000 copies at 6.90 euros — a premium product from a mass-market brand. Beyond recipes, Lecker covers contemporary, healthy nutrition topics, practical kitchen gadgets, and creative table-decoration ideas, making it as much a lifestyle magazine as a cookbook.

The brand extends beyond the core title. Lecker Spezial editions explore single topics or occasions in depth — Christmas baking, special ingredients, festive menus. Lecker Kids addresses the next generation with child-friendly recipes meant to be cooked together with parents, pitching itself at "the star chefs of tomorrow". The practical landscape format, designed to stand open on a kitchen counter, remains one of the magazine's most distinctive features.

Coverage and audience

Lecker targets readers who enjoy cooking without taking it too seriously: newcomers to the kitchen, busy working people looking for quick ideas, and experimental hobby cooks who like to try new things. The 2015 reach of around 0.47 million readers made it one of Germany's widest-reaching food titles at the time. Its supermarket positioning and affordable cover price — around 5.50 to 5.80 euros in 2025/2026 — keep it an impulse purchase rather than a subscription product.

The editorial focus on seasonal ingredients, quick meals and uncomplicated technique reflects how its audience actually cooks: not as aspirational project but as daily routine with occasional flourishes. The cooking school for classics serves readers who want to master the basics before experimenting, while features on professional chefs' specialities give the magazine a touch of aspiration without alienating its core.

Ownership

The magazine's history is intertwined with the rise of food television. When Gruner + Jahr launched Essen & Trinken für jeden Tag with TV chef Tim Mälzer in 2003, industry observers saw Bauer's cooperation with British star chef Jamie Oliver in Lecker as the direct answer — a duel of celebrity chefs fought out on the newsstand. The Tagesspiegel noted in 2007 that Bauer wanted Oliver's involvement to reach the 30-to-39 age group, the young families and career-starters who were discovering cooking as a lifestyle. It was a shrewd move: Oliver's Naked Chef image — informal, fast, anti-snobbish — matched Lecker's own positioning perfectly, and the collaboration helped cement the magazine's status as the young alternative in the German food press.

Lecker is published by the Heinrich Bauer CARAT KG, part of the Bauer Media Group headquartered at Burchardstraße 11 in Hamburg. The company's roots go back to 1875, when lithographer Johann Andreas Ludolph Bauer founded a small printing house in Hamburg; still family-owned in the fourth and fifth generation, Bauer grew into one of Europe's largest magazine publishers, with titles across some 15 countries spanning news, entertainment, women's magazines, TV guides and special interests. The German food portfolio around Lecker includes budget titles such as Rezepte pur ("lecker, preiswert, schnell") and the aspirational kochen & genießen, positioning Lecker as the group's youthful mainstream brand. The magazine appears ten times a year — the annual subscription was advertised at 38 euros in the late 2010s — and its 2025/2026 cover price of around 5.50 to 5.80 euros keeps it firmly in impulse-purchase territory. Bauer is a family-owned media company — the Bauer family has controlled it since its 1875 founding — and one of Europe's largest magazine publishers, with a portfolio spanning news, entertainment, women's titles, TV guides and special-interest magazines across some 15 countries. In Germany, Bauer's food portfolio also includes titles such as kochen & genießen and Rezepte pur, giving Lecker siblings in the budget and aspirational segments.

Digital presence

The Lecker online presence brings together the publisher's food-magazine brands in a single recipe portal: thousands of recipes from all directions of modern cooking, plus information on contemporary healthy nutrition and decoration ideas. Like its print parent, the digital offering is aimed at the daily cooking decision — what to make tonight — rather than at culinary connoisseurship. The online archive gives Lecker a durable asset as print circulation shrinks: tested recipes with an established brand behind them, in a web environment crowded with untested content of uncertain origin.

Four decades after its 1985 launch, Lecker survives as a reminder that the German food magazine was once a mass product — and as evidence that even mass products can persist, smaller and leaner, when the brand still means something to the readers who grew up with it.