Jumbo drops key bread supplier, putting 700 bakery jobs at risk
Jumbo will terminate its contract with its main bread suppliers by 2026 in an effort to reduce procurement costs, Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) reported. The decision ends a relationship of more than 20 years with Bake Five, a cooperative of five family-owned bakeries that together hold roughly 25 percent of the Dutch bread market and employ 700 full-time staff.
The new supplier will be Bakkerij Goedhart, owned by the Borgesius family. With a 40 percent market share, Goedhart is the largest bakery in the Netherlands and currently supplies Albert Heijn, Jumbo's main competitor. The shift reportedly represents a major reshuffling in the country’s industrial bread sector.
Bake Five stands to lose one of its largest clients, a move that could reportedly have serious economic consequences for the bakery group. The FD reported the contract change could severely impact the continuity of the Bake Five companies, which are responsible for delivering fresh bread daily to Jumbo locations across the country.
The switch comes amid ongoing tension between Jumbo and its suppliers. The supermarket has reportedly been seeking lower wholesale prices to deal with cost pressures stemming from inflation, which has significantly eroded retail profit margins. Jumbo has made no secret of its intent to push down costs across its supply chain.
Earlier this year, negotiations between Jumbo and other major suppliers also soured. Products from Heineken and Douwe Egberts temporarily disappeared from shelves when talks over pricing broke down. That conflict drew public attention to the supermarket’s increasingly "aggressive" procurement strategy.
Neither Jumbo nor Bake Five has confirmed how the 700 affected jobs will be handled following the contract's termination. The financial and logistical impact on Bake Five’s operations is expected to be substantial, given the group’s historic dependence on the supermarket’s national distribution.
