The Bread Route: from the Hebаr factory to the shelves of Lidl

Whether you are particular to the crunchy end or the soft middle, surely you have wondered what the secret is to the fresh, delicious bread that you buy from the bakery section of Lidl Bulgaria. Natural ingredients, slow-rising dough made with traditional technology and a low amount of salt. This is not just a recipe, but the formula for the success behind the Bulgarian bread manufacturer Hebar, part of the Simid Group.

The Bulgarian company has been partnering with the German supermarket chain for 20 years, delivering both baked goods from the Lidl Oven and packaged bread - 365 days a year, 7 days a week as many as 50 different products. And the magic happens at the company's plant in Plovdiv.

Thanks to its partnership with Lidl, the bread-making company, based in the second-largest Bulgarian city has entered 10 European markets, such as Romania, Greece, Slovenia, Poland, etc. Very soon, the first deliveries will also be made to the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The first export of Hebar products within Lidl's European sales network took place in 2012 in Romania. For the last three years, their export turnover through the chain has grown by an average of 10% per year.

About 30-40% of our total production is exported," says Mitko Karadjov, manager of Hebar and Simid Agro.

"The cleanest food"

The plant in Plovdiv is equipped with production lines from German companies, but the ovens where the bread is baked are Bulgarian. Absolutely all processes are fully automated - from kneading the dough to shaping it into a semmel, baguette or other, to rising, cutting, baking and packaging. Thus, Hebar meets Lidl's requirements for clean, high-quality production under the Clean Hands program, which ensures that nothing is touched by human hands.

In order to meet these requirements, we invested in two new production lines for baguettes and semmel rolls, at the cost of nearly 15 million euros. These lines ensure qualitatively and quantitatively our capabilities as a company and help us to be an even more stable and reliable partner," stated Poliksenia Dimova, "Corporate Clients" Coordinator at Simid Group.

Once the dough is mixed, it makes its way through the assembly line where it is stretched. Another machine distributes it by type and shape depending on whether it is to be made into loaves or baguettes, for example. A special machine makes the well-known slices using a strong, water jet. Once shaped, the loaves rise in special containers on woolen cloth.

It is the technology of slow rising that gives the products a well-known taste. It also uses less yeast. Once they have sat and rested enough, the loaves go to the ovens, where they are lightly toasted. They are then frozen and packed to go to Lidl's oven, where they are further baked at 220 degrees for 12-14 minutes.

The entire packaging process is also fully automated – from labeling to placing the finished products in cardboard boxes to foiling the pallets. The time in which the dough gets transformed into a finished loaf is about 6 hours, and the physical path it travels along the production lines is about 200 meters.

It's like an athletics sports discipline," says Dimova.  

The Hebar coordinator says that bread is the cleanest food because apart from the basic products there is nothing else to add. The company uses its own flour, and trusts established partners for the rest of the products.  

According to Georgi Hristov, manager of Simid Sofia, the shelf life of the manufactured bread products is 3-4 days, and this is helped by the automation of the entire process and the fact that the bread is not touched, which would unnecessarily moisten the products. When asked what makes their products so favoured outside of Bulgaria, Hristov says that the company's competitive advantage is the long fermentation and the raw materials.

In many other countries, the fermentation process is short, plus they add chemicals because they ensure greater productivity."

Despite all the automated processes, the company employs about 600 people. Shift workers make sure everything is going as it should. If there is any problem with the machines, they can react and fix it. According to the Hebar manager, finding labor is difficult, since the factory works in shifts that are not always convenient. Lately, the bread factory also employs people from Nepal.

In order for the finished products to reach Lidl stores, deliveries are made in the small hours of the day. From the factory, trucks reach distribution hubs around the country, from where the production gets reloaded and delivered to each store. This supply chain is extremely important for Lidl, so they can always offer high-quality products to their customers.

Our monthly production is about 1,000 trucks," says Dimova.

Working with Lidl

This is an honest Bulgarian business that has shown over the years reliability, enormous capacities to reinvest and expand production, and to stay competitive," says Milena Dragiiska, CEO of Lidl Bulgaria.

Hebar is part of over 250 Bulgarian suppliers to the retail chain. According to Dragiiska, Bulgarian manufacturers know consumer requirements, are willing to meet them and can successfully overcome any crisis.

During all these years, the partners have been working daily on improving the recipes, looking for a variety of raw materials, reducing salt for the sake of the health of the customers, developing and launching round bread loaves that were never common on the local market before.

We offer spelt bread, extremely successful rye and whole wheat bread, and we created [what's become] a favorite choice of a huge part of our customers - vegetable bread. And the kozunaks that we have been offering for Easter for several years now, are the most successful items from our promotional assortment", says Elina Hristova-Petkova, head of Purchasing Food and Near Food of Lidl Bulgaria.

An important aspect of the partnership is the reduction of salt and sugar in the assortment of Lidl's own brands. This strategy has been adopted by Hebar since 2020. To date, salt has been reduced in all products that the company supplies to the chain - by an average of 20%, resulting in a reduction in salt use of approximately 13.5 tons in 2023 alone.

The Deputy Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany Stephan Röken commented that the partnership between Lidl and Hebar is a good way to attract Bulgarians living abroad to return to their country and seek a good career. It's a win-win for everyone, as this way Lidl secures a reliable supply of quality products and companies like Hebar gain access to export markets.

Lidl is an asset for Bulgaria," concluded the deputy ambassador.

Translated by Tzvetozar Vincent Iolov