“You can’t get proper bread in the States,” a homesick Bertolt Brecht wrote in his diary while in exile in the United States in 1941. “I love eating bread.”
More than 70 years later, Germany’s love affair with bread is hardly wearing off. Other than beer, punctuality, and organization, there are few things that are regarded as quintessentially German as bread. On average, every German eats 87 kilos (192 pounds) of the stuff anually. Because Germany boasts such an incredible number of bread varieties—with more than 300 types—it’s also been one of the country’s most notable cultural exports. German bread is appreciated and valued so much that UNESCO added it to its list of intangible cultural heritage earlier this year.
Despite that, Germany has recently seen significant transformations in the industry, resulting in a sharp decline in the number of independent bakeries, as well as in interest from young people who would want to be bakers in the future.
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