Piet Haaksma Bakery in Sneek Closes Due to Debt and Rising Costs

Haaksma’s name has been on the shop front in Kruizebroederstraat since 1986. Thirteen years ago his employee Jacob Heemstra took over the business. He turned out to be a good master of the trade, as can be seen from the many bakery awards he won with sugar bread, multi-grain bread and almond butter letter.

But Haaksma did not see a future for his bakery in the center of the town of Sneker. This week the baker went to the bankruptcy judge in Leeuwarden. There is a debt of around 500,000 euros, says goalkeeper Dick Poiesz.

“What makes a company like that fail? The corona has played a role, but you can also see that the costs of raw materials and energy have increased significantly,” the lawyer explains. “And on top of that wage costs are higher. All this has meant that this case could no longer be resolved.”

Low traffic is not the reason

In his note to customers, Heemstra also discusses the controversial car-free town center in Sneek. Banning car traffic didn’t help, the baker admits. “But that’s certainly not the reason for the closure.”

Twelve people work at the bakery. “Part-time,” said the keeper. He has to tell them to quit. At the same time, Poiesz is trying to organize a resume for a bakery shop. “A debt of five thousand euros is indeed a lot of money, but in return you have your own shop and baking equipment. ”

The number of bakeries is growing

It is a fact that bakers are struggling with the effects of the war in Ukraine, says Jenneke van Elderen from the Netherlands Baking Centre. “Gas prices have gone up a lot and you can’t cut back on this by, for example, heating up the oven.”

Likewise, the number of bakery shops is still increasing, it seems from the transfer report from the Holland Bakery Center. In the last ten years, the number of bakeries in the Netherlands grew by 30 percent to 4,583 who also participated, with the growth of eight new bakery companies to a total of 151.