DAVÍÐ ARNÓRSSON AND GUDBJARTUR GUDBJARTSSON

How long have you been in the baking industry?

Almost 30 years, I started in this industry when I was only 13 years old. So, I‚ve been between the flour and the oven pretty much all my life. I never wanted to do anything else, baking is simply my life.

What are the most significant changes compared to your beginnings in this field?

This is going to sound strange, but the most significant change is that we are trying to go back to our roots. A lot of bakeries are trying to make their jobs easier, freezing their products and so on. We don't do any of those things, instead we try to go the most frugal way possible and make our products the traditional way.

Has your product range changed with the times?

We cannot say that we are changing our product range radically. All the changes we are making are really gradual. We don't want to take anything out of our range too much, as all our products sell very well and have loyal customers who we don't want to take away their favorite bakery products. But of course, the range has changed slightly since we started.

our employees‘ jobs much easier. At the same time, these ovens allow us to stick to our traditional recipes and we don't have to adapt them to some automated programs or the like. To be clear, we do use new technology and automatic ovens, but to the extent that it does not affect our approach, which is based on traditional baking. We simply still like to get our hands dirty with honest baking work.

Is this craft still burdened by tradition or are younger bakers also coming to the fore?

In our case, we try to work more with young bakers. We have a lot of young people coming in, but baking is hard work and not every young person can stick with it. But we do try to work with young people, but sometimes we run into a lack of experience. In Iceland, it takes 6 years to become a baker. Here in the Czech Republic, it takes only three years and at the same time the baking education here is not as good as it is in Iceland, which is noticeable for young bakers. The education system here tends to produce bakers for the large industrial bakeries, not for the artisanal ones. That is why we choose young people who do not have the necessary experience but have a passion for the baking craft and enjoy further education and improvement in this direction.

Are baking trends from abroad gradually coming to us?

Absolutely, we are part of it ourselves. We are very happy when we get new recipes from different countries around the world. Although in our case we tend to concentrate on bread. We try to make our bread as healthy as possible and low in gluten. In the Czech Republic, this is a big problem and bakers do not address the gluten content too much. But we want to go a different way. This is the legacy of our bakery; we try to make delicious bread that at the same time does not put too much strain on your body.

We also like to bring inspiration from our holidays. It often happens that we taste something and try these new flavors as soon as we arrive.

Is there any technology that has radically changed your industry during

your career?

Absolutely! A big change for us was switching to the ThermoStar Classic oven from Kornfeil. Our products have a much more consistent quality with this oven. Another huge advantage is the automation and control of these ovens, which makes