Scan Magazine | Special Theme | A Taste of Norway
Klæbu Håndbakeri produces thousands of delicious, homemade loaves, buns and sweet treats every day.
The finest gluten-free baking — rich in flavour and personal touch When one of the Gerhardsen family’s boys fell ill with coeliac disease in 1999, highquality gluten-free bread and pastries were hard to come by. After visiting a glutenfree bakery in Sweden, the family decided to take matters into their own hands and started the gluten-free Klæbu Håndbakeri in Klæbu, south of Trondheim. ByJulie Linden | Photos: Klæbu Håndbakeri
Changes, challenges – and a solution found in Gothenburg
finding of suitable gluten-free foods for their son that was the problem: it was the social exclusion the diagnosis brought, and the difficulties of finding good-tasting products outside of the home. “Going to a restaurant as a group can be a real challenge. The waiter has to run to the kitchen and check if there is flour in the gravy, as many don’t know. If there is a gluten-free alternative on the menu, it will not necessarily fit the appetite of a young boy,” says Gerhardsen. “This can result in the restaurant losing an entire party of guests, or the person with the special diet feeling excluded from the meal.”
There were significant challenges involved with the change. As the family experienced, it was not necessarily the
While on a family holiday to Gothenburg in 2005, the family experienced an en-
“It was a tough time for our family, but we were fortunate to see our son receive the greatest care and correct diagnosis straight away,” Frode Gerhardsen recalls, explaining how his then one-year-old son had grown increasingly ill when starting to eat solid foods. The illness swiftly changed the day-to-day activities of the family of five. “We learned how to cook gluten-free food from scratch that our son would actually like, and we had to be diligent when reading all food labels.”
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counter that would spark the dream of a lifetime. When visiting an all gluten-free bakery in the city, they realised there were places that had made a business out of catering to people like their son – and were doing so with high-quality, homemade and flavourful products. “We couldn’t believe it,” Gerhardsen says, admitting that the memory still makes him emotional. “Our son definitely couldn’t believe it.
Last year, the Norwegian Celiac Association awarded the business the accolade Best Business in Gluten Free Production. Photo: Bjørn Inge Karlsen