photo: Bob Asher, PrahaIN.cz/Pondnikatel Ondřej Kuchař
INTERVIEW: If you want to start a business in the Czech Republic, it is not enough to have enthusiasm, vision and money. First of all, you have to prepare yourself to fight the bureaucracy. If you don’t have enough patience, you’re out of luck. “Our state is overregulated. Before you go through all the bureaucratic barriers, you lose time and money,” Ondřej Kuchař, co-owner of the artisanal bakery, told the PrahaIN.cz server.
He has been making a living as a private individual since the end of the nineties. He therefore has extensive experience with the burgeoning state bureaucracy. For years, he has been watching how the number of regulations has long since grown into a huge and confusing juggernaut.
“Our state is overregulated a lot. For us, this means that when we open a new cafe with a bakery, we have to meet such a huge number of administrative rules that it is almost impossible to meet them. If a person was not very tenacious, he would have to give up,” Ondřej Kuchař, co-owner of the Zrno Zrnko bakery, told the editorial staff of PrahaIN.cz.
Preparation for baking the wheels. Photo: PrahaIN.cz
According to him, it is increasingly difficult for many entrepreneurs to familiarize themselves with the number of regulations, the number of which is also increasing every year. The businessman is convinced that their number could be reduced by half. Allegedly, neither the state nor its citizens would come to harm.
Barriers
“The state has a habit of proceeding in such a way that if something happens somewhere, a rule is made to prevent it from happening again. But there are already so many rules that there are simply too many of them. It takes an awful lot of time to get through these barriers, and above all, it costs money. Although you know that sometimes it is nonsense, you have to fulfill everything that some official orders you to do,” the businessman complained.
When it is necessary to fulfill all the regulations, especially beginning entrepreneurs are faced with often curious moments. Anyone who decides to support himself and start a company needs sufficient funds as a basis. In some cases, however, business owners pay large sums even before the start.
“In practice, it looks like we have to invest a lot of money in oversized air conditioning and the like, for example. Big stores, for example, know this very well. They have a prescribed number of parking spaces and the like. I am not saying that some regulations and rules do not make sense. However, I dare to state that business and the state itself would benefit if we had half of them,” emphasized Ondřej Kuchař.
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From language school to bakery
His journey into the field of gastronomy is rather curious. He started working in a completely different industry. Together with his partner Jakub Štefeček, they founded the largest private language school in the Czech Republic at the age of twenty.
“We built the school for nineteen years and sold it in 2018. We agreed that we will continue doing business together. We were looking for a field that we would enjoy, that we would like, that would make sense and at the same time would be on the rise. In the end, we chose an artisanal bakery. There were several reasons. We thought it would definitely be fun, it’s meaningful because you do good things. People like it and give quick feedback if it’s good and start coming back. In addition, gastronomy is improving dramatically, especially in big cities. Today, we no longer have to pay exorbitant sums to eat well,” said the businessman.
Freshly baked bread. Photo: PrahaIN.cz
“The demand for quality pastries and bread is also growing. The advantage of good food is that once you taste it, you don’t want to eat the bad food again. If you are constantly buying bread in chains, it will seem normal to you. Then one day you have good bread that is only made from kvass and is baked slowly and in a good oven. You will suddenly find that it tastes better, that it lasts longer, does not go moldy and that you feel better after it because it is more digestible. For our main bread, we managed to fine-tune the recipe so that it is tasty and at the same time does not impose that basic taste. Our customers are the proof that we succeeded. Today, we have fifty restaurants and hotels where we deliver ‘something’ and bread,” says the entrepreneur.
“Our customers have never complained about the price before. It’s just that when you taste it and you’re satisfied, you say yes, it’s more expensive than bread from a chain, but the difference is significant and worth it. Despite the fact that a loaf of bread for a hundred won’t break the bank. Who eats a whole meal in one sitting? On the other hand, people will have two beers somewhere and pay more for them than for one loaf of bread,” concluded Ondřej Kuchař.
2023-11-05 04:03:37
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