25 Years!

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2014 THE DOMINION POST
dompost.co.nz
B3
Arobake’s 25th birthday
ADVERTISING FEATURE
Family business built on quality
I
T’S been 25 years of making dough in
Aro Valley for Max Fuhrer and his
team at Arobake, and like a good
dough, the business just keeps growing.
There are a couple of reasons for this.
One is that it has always been a
supportive family affair. In fact, it was
Max’s brother Ernst who was running the
Aro Street Butchery at the time who
suggested Max have a look at the original
building at 96 Aro St, which had been the
Aroma health food shop.
Fuhrer’s dad (also called Max)
bankrolled the buying of the original shop
for $30,000 and when they expanded to 94
Aro St, Max senior also built a lot of the
shop fittings, some of which are still in
use.
There was no magic formula for the
success of the business apart from a huge
focus on quality and plenty of hard work,
Fuhrer says.
Of course making things people like is
the other key ingredient. Belgian biscuits
are big favourites and neenish tarts are
always popular. Arobake introduced
European cakes and breads that Fuhrer
learned to make during his years of
training in Switzerland.
In 2001, they crossed the road to 83 and
have been there since. In fact, Fuhrer
now lives behind the bakery, making it a
rather cosy operation.
In its 25 years Arobake has gone from
just three people to now being a 30-person
operation running morning and evening
shifts and supplying fresh cakes and
breads throughout Wellington, with
Christmas products being sent as far as
Auckland. The bakery has three vans
delivering product every day out to
Porirua, Petone and the inner city to 80
wholesale customers.
Aro St is ideal for having a ready base
of loyal, local clientele, he says, and being
centrally placed he can look after the
wholesale trade.
‘‘Service is a big thing that we focus on
as well. If something goes wrong, or
something needs to be dropped off or
there’s a rush order we can do that.’’
In the meantime all four of the Fuhrer
children have been through the company
working school holidays and after school.
Son Dylan is now the day bakery
manager, Oliver is an apprentice,
daughter Grace is studying nutritional
science at Otago University and
Tasty anniversary: Arobake’s Max Fuhrer says being a solid family business has been the
key to its longevity. And having great food hasn’t hurt either.
Photos: JOHN NICHOLSON/FAIRFAX NZ
secondary college student Joshua works
in the shop.
Fuhrer (it says Maximilian on his
business card but he’s usually just Max)
left school at 16 with three School C
subjects including German, which wasn’t
too tough as he spoke it at home anyway.
He did his apprenticeship at
Johnsonville’s Barends Patisserie and
after five years he went to trade school in
Zurich to refine his skills and apply the
disciplines of quality baking the Swiss
are noted for.
He says the Swiss are the best bakers
in the world, ‘‘well, they’re good at
everything they do’’, he laughs. Wife
Susie, who has a Dutch pedigree, only
accepts they are ‘‘some’’ of the best
bakers. (There might be a bit of family
bias in there as well, as his late father was
Swiss, while his mum Rosina is from
Germany.)
Fuhrer is particularly proud of his
young team, who do the early starts
bakers are renowned for. With them
starting the day, he can get up as late as
7am, a much more reasonable time for a
50-year-old bloke.
It also means he can devote more time
to looking after his wholesale customers
and developing the business.
‘‘I like to try and grow the people a bit
as well and add value to their careers.’’
He has trained 16 apprentices in his
time and currently has three, two of
whom, Lucy Whitlow and Pauline Cross,
were judged among the top nine
apprentices in New Zealand this year.
Arobake has also helped a vast number of
university students fund their studies by
serving in the store and some older folks
supplement their pensions with some
part-time work doing deliveries.
‘‘I worked out we’ve put over $10m in
wages into the community over the
years,’’ he says.
He is still developing the company and
for the past four years he’s used a
business mentor to help build Arobake
even further. He uses social media to
attract more customers and there is also
an Arobake club with a discounts for
members and a lively spot on Facebook.
Fuhrer is proud that a number of the
team have worked there seven or eight
years and many staff come back, with one
being back about four times.
‘‘People say it’s hard to work for
another bakery after working here.’’
A focus on people is in part a major
outcome of Fuhrer’s renewed Christian
faith, which is closely linked to a grim
period in the business.
Raised a Catholic by his devout
parents (his mum blessed the business
when it started) he says up till then
religion wasn’t something he cared about.
In fact, his goal when starting the
business at 25 was to be a millionaire at
30.
The business grew quickly, which was
good, but a big building project was
taking too long and costing too much
money, and Fuhrer says he feared things
were ‘‘going down the gurgler’’.
Coupled with the pressure of a child on
the way, he was feeling the strain.
‘‘I started to pray. It really altered my
values.’’
And it was while reading the Bible
that he says he was literally floored.
He was reading about the account of
Jesus appearing to some disciples on the
road to Emmaus after his resurrection
where they didn’t recognise him. (Luke
24:13-35 for the scripturally minded.)
‘‘Somehow I realised it and I felt like
saying to them, ‘Don’t you realise [this is
Jesus]! I found myself on the ground, laid
flat. It was a huge personal revelation to
me.’’
‘‘I fell in love with Jesus, his [Catholic]
church and her teachings. It’s amazing
the weird ideas people have about the
church, when it’s just about the love of
God, about discovering our love-ableness.
Which means continually telling the
truth about ourselves, both a painful and
healing experience.
‘‘We call this confession or
reconciliation and done with honest
humility it leads to a changed life.’’
Arobake is marking its 25th birthday
with a fun day on October 30 at the shop.
❚ For more information go to:
arobake.co.nz
Top team:
Max Fuhrer
with awardwinning
apprentices
Lucy Whitlow,
left, and
Pauline
Cross, both
24, with
neenish tarts
and miniature
carrot cakes.
Baking the old-fashioned way
HONEY and walnut bread; lemon mousse
torte; custard squares – new twists on old
recipes and plenty of traditional
favourites make up the range of breads
and cakes Arobake creates every day.
For 25 years the bakery has been
making the best of New Zealand
favourites and European classics, and it’s
always game to try something new.
‘‘We do a chocolate diplomat,’’ says
owner Max Fuhrer. ‘‘It’s a beautiful realegg custard, chocolate mousse creation.
And our custard squares are pretty
famous.’’
One of his personal favourites is the
rhubarb and custard tart. ‘‘When it comes
warm out of the oven it’s pretty hard to
beat.’’
The breads are still made the same oldfashioned way when Arobake opened in
1989, using interrupted fermentation to
create a delicious loaf, with a solid crust.
Though 25 years ago traditional
European bread took a few people a bit of
getting used to.
‘‘They would tap the hard crust and
say ‘this bread is old, it’s hard’. But when
they tried our bread they loved it.
‘‘Good food doesn’t take much to
appreciate.’’
While traditional methods are central
to Arobake’s philosophy, they also like to
do things just a little bit differently.
‘‘We’ve made multigrain bread from
day one and it’s still one of our top
sellers.’’
But also up there in terms of
popularity is a honey ciabatta bread.
‘‘We put quite a lot of honey in it and
it’s really successful. We do a walnut and
honey bread and that’s hugely popular as
well.’’
The term gluten-free applies to some of
the cakes made at Arobake, but none of
the bread.
‘‘It’s just the nature of the bakery,
there’s flour everywhere,’’ he says. Plus,
separating the gluten free flour from
ordinary flour would be tough in the
bread side of the operations.
And really, he doesn’t see the point of
bread without gluten.
‘‘It’s like alcohol-free beer.’’
‘‘I say to people, you should try our
bread and you mightn’t be allergic to
that.’’
That’s because Arobake loaves are
very traditional without any additives
that might be the things that are affecting
people.
Fuhrer says some people who are selfdiagnosing themselves as gluten
intolerant may just not be getting a
quality product.
‘‘Good bread is just flour, water, yeast,
salt and sometimes malt which comes
from sprouted barley seeds which are
roasted and milled to generate sugar for
the yeast.
‘‘Then there is interrupted
fermentation where we make a dough
that’s chilled for about 18 hours.
‘‘What that does is it really hydrates
the gluten in the bread and I do wonder if
more people would be better off eating
more bread like that.’’
Apart from the bakery itself, Arobake
products are also available at Moore
Wilson’s Fresh Markets in Wellington
City, Porirua and Masterton.