Success story:
The machine whisperer
Ernst Joast is a forward-thinker, a lateral thinker and a visionary in the baking trade at the foot of the Lienz Dolomites. He’s someone who goes his own way – and not just in the mountains. A shrewd businessman, a bon vivant and a quality fanatic. “Everything fits together perfectly here,” he says.
Ambassador of good taste
A look behind the scenes at the products and the process that defines their quality.
The master baker and confectioner knows exactly what he wants and how to achieve it. He opts for what he considers to be the best solutions in terms of units, systems, machines, and ovens. And because he always thinks ‘five years ahead’, he has already carved out the performance requirements the new bread roll system has to meet to replace his aging equipment: reliable, flexible in its processes, and easy to operate.
Together with his brother, who is a trained electrical engineer and takes care of the technical side of things, Joast went to look at a system at a bakery in Bavaria, and then came to visit the baking center at WP BAKERY TECHNOLOGIES to produce his baked goods on the bread roll system there, using his own recipes and flours. He was enthusiastic about the quality, his brother fascinated by the system’s technical design concept.
Joast GmbH Lienz, Tyrol
Company: Joast GmbH Bürgeraustraße 20, 9900 Lienz, Austria
Managing Director: Ernst Joast
Employees: 100
Locations: 7
Unique selling point: Processing of locally grown organic grains, organic baked goods
Signature product: Vinschgauer bread roll
Customer structure and breakdown: 60 % store sales, 30 % food service, 10 % retail
Website: www.joast.at
The main components can be removed, replaced, and cleaned in one easy step. For Joast Bakery, the weekly disassembly and cleaning of all the system’s moving parts is not just optional, but has almost become a treasured ritual. Because if you love your machines, you take good care of them.
And Ernst Joast knows why. 38 years ago, he started out from scratch in a rented 85-square-meter shop with an attached bakehouse on Schweizergasse in Lienz. He was far away from being “the Joast” at the time. As the eldest of ten children, taking over his parents' bakery in Virgen, Tyrol, seemed like a foregone conclusion. He learned the baking trade at Wienerroither in Pörtschach am Wörthersee, got his master’s certification in Innsbruck, went abroad, and came back to Tyrol, though to Lienz this time, as a ski instructor.
When he started his own business, there were seven bakeries in Lienz. Today, only two are left besides his own in this 12,000-resident town in East Tyrol. To succeed, he had to forge his own path, which was very difficult at first. He had lengthy discussions with farmers who were to grow organic spelt and rye for him. Today, he grinds 30 metric tonnes a year in his own mill. He also spent long hours in conversation in the shop with restaurant owners and hoteliers in the “Sun City” of Tyrol. Today, he operates seven locations and earns 30 % of his revenue from supplying restaurants and hotels. He knew: quality reigns.
Being an ambassador of good taste, he invites everyone from schoolchildren to respected multipliers to his bakehouse, maintains a strong presence in regional and social media, and focuses on catchy slogans in his communications, such as “I am all ears” or “Do not leave your rolls unattended”. Joast sells his products at own locations with adjoining café, in a shopping mall, a hospital, at a market, and a 24/7 self-service store.
The 64-year-old is neither a modernist nor a traditionalist; rather, he knows how to leverage the best of both worlds to achieve the highest quality, the most efficient processes, and the best sales.
Just as he has been feeding the original sourdough starter for his breads every day for the past 25 years as a matter of course, he relies on a long fermentation process in large cold storage rooms during production.
Ernst Joast has not only an eye for the products and the process, but also for the market. Catering to the taste of customers and tourists, he produces South Tyrolean specialties such as Vinschgauer and Schuettelbrot as well as burger buns for restaurants, and kebab bread for Turkish eateries. The Vinschgauer bread rolls are shaped by hand, while all other small bakery items like Kaiser rolls, bread rolls with custom stamped designs, Joastspitze, mini small bakery items, dough for pretzels, buns, kebab bread, and crullers are now made by his favorite machine.
