Confiseur Bachmann intends to produce in Rothenburg in future
Lucerne/Rothenburg - The bakery and confectionery business Confiseur Bachmann AG is planning to relocate its production activities to Rothenburg in 2030. The family company is on the brink of completing the purchase of around 10,000 square meters of land at the BOA site from the Migros Luzern cooperative.
Confiseur Bachmann AG has drawn up relocation plans: The family-owned company, which can look back on nearly 130 years of history, has prospectively signaled its intention to move production activities from the Tribschenquartier in Lucerne to Rothenburg in 2030. The acquisition of 10,000 square meters of land on the former site of BOA AG – whose sales office for Switzerland is based in Sursee in the canton of Lucerne – is now almost complete, as co-CEO and co-owner Raphael Bachmann states in an article published by the German-language Swiss daily newspaper “Luzerner Zeitung”. The property has been owned by Migros Luzern since 2014.
The plan is to construct a modern, energy-efficient building, including a shop and an event space for visitors. Although business is said to be good for Bachmann, its Co-CEO stresses that the bakery industry is under pressure, reflected in the fact that more food and baked goods are currently being imported than ever before. Against this backdrop, the company is reportedly striving to evolve.
“Our current production facilities have grown over decades and are increasingly reaching their structural and technical limits”, Bachmann explains, who has been running the bakery and confectionery business with his brother Matthias for 20 years now, the fourth generation of the family to do so. “The existing constraints on space, climatic conditions and operational structures make efficient, modern and cost-effective production quite a challenge”. Moreover, the company has not been spared from the effects of rising energy costs either. “The bakery business needs to be realigned in order to produce in a resource-conserving, economical and high-quality manner over the long term. By pursuing this vision, we have a shot at remaining competitive and securing the future viability of our family business”.
At present, Confiserie Bachmann operates 26 specialist stores, ten of which also have a café, across 5 Swiss cantons. The company is seeking to secure an investment in the high double-digit million range to finance the new production facility in Rothenburg. The exact date of the relocation remains unclear: “If everything goes smoothly, then 2030 is certainly realistic”, Bachmann says.
However, he is also clear that relocating production activities outside of the canton was never an option for the company management: “We are from Lucerne and always want to stay in Lucerne. We and our people feel at home here”.
