How to sell 4.5 million grain rolls worldwide every day.

Peter Augendopler, inventor of the Kornspitz® grain roll, Backaldrin The Kornspitz® Company

On November 20, 2013, in the framework of the MCI Alumni & Friends lecture series, the Entrepreneurial School® took pleasure in welcoming Peter Augendopler, inventor of the Kornspitz® grain roll, Europe’s most successful branded baking product, which today is marketed worldwide.

Back in 1964 Peter Augendopler became the first employee in the new company founded by his parents and in 1969 was given the job of establishing its first foreign subsidiary, in Germany. By 1989, Backaldrin was setting up subsidiaries in the countries of the former Communist bloc in Eastern Europe, and a program of international expansion was initiated in 1995. Today, the company, which is headquartered in Asten in Upper Austria, produces more than 600 products for bread, rolls, cakes and pastries, which are exported to 99 different countries. In 2006, Backaldrin commenced manufacturing operations at a second factory, located in Jordan, which supplies baking products to the Arab Region and countries in Africa.

Peter Augendopler refers to himself as a baker: “There is no finer occupation”. For him, the company’s mission is to turn bread into a modern form of nutrition. To that end, Backaldrin delivers not only the ingredients for bread worldwide but also the knowhow needed to use those basic materials to bake bread of the same high quality every day. Grain, for example, is first analyzed in the laboratory and then tested in the baking process. Depending on the results of the tests, modifications are subsequently made to the dough production process. The House of Bread in Asten includes a modern training centre, where the company’s employees are taught baking theory and skills, and the results of the laboratory and baking tests are made available there. To ensure that all customers worldwide are able to produce bread of a consistently high quality, Backaldrin maintains a baking hotline and if required will also send a baking advisor.

Asked what tips he had for the many students in the audience, Peter Augendopler advised them to acquire as much broad-based knowledge as possible, collect practical experience, read a serious newspaper every day and above all take advantage of today’s opportunities to go abroad to learn.

The event was chaired by Dr. Florian Becke, Executive Director of Gründungszentrum CAST.