Fourth-generation family bakery in Røros Providing an equally exciting offer for a four-year-old and her grandmother with their delicious cakes, breads, ice creams and pastries, Trygstad Bakeri in Røros in Norway has found the key to success in an old bakery passed down through four generations.
the ‘50s and is a baked good served with butter. There is also the very traditional Norwegian ‘brown cheese’, which is caramelised goat’s cheese.
By Line Elise Svanevik | Photos: Jarle Akselsen
Trygstad originally trained in confectionery, despite the fact that the previous generations behind Trygstad Bakeri were all bakers. “I worked in the bakery from the age of 13 – which both my children, now aged 20 and 22, did as well – and then I moved to Oslo in 1988 and realised I wanted to be a confectioner, so I studied and lived in Oslo for eight years,” she says.
The history of Trygstad Bakeri can be traced back to 1906 when the current owner Anita Trygstad’s great grandfather opened the doors to the family-run business, which often boasts queues down the road from opening to closing on a Saturday. “There are no customers that are more important than others – we welcome everyone from the age of zero to 80 and beyond,” explains Trygstad. “If we served a four-year-old or the king, they’d still get the same treatment, which I think is one of the reasons we’ve been so successful – the customer always comes first.” Trygstad, who now runs the bakery with her partner, explains that the bakery is very traditional in both its recipes and 92 | Issue 103 | August 2017
its methods. “Bar some initial kneading by machine, everything is done by hand. All the bread is hand-kneaded with good ingredients and fresh eggs; I believe the ingredients are very important,” she explains. In 2001, a year after she took over the bakery from her father, she made a big overhaul of the facilities, adding not one but two cafés to the bakery. In keeping with the traditional atmosphere, the oven from 1953 was not replaced until recently, and Trygstad explains that people are often shocked by the old-fashioned methods at the bakery. There are even a few secret recipes in use, including her grandmother’s ‘pjalt’ that was created in
Café in an old slaughterhouse It was when she took over the bakery in 2000 that Trygstad decided to open up a café as well, in order to sell cakes and pastries along with hot beverages. One of the two cafés now run on the site sits within the bakery, the other in an old slaughterhouse. Together they seat around 220 people inside and outside.