Bäckerei-Konditorei Frei AG

What Bäckerei-Konditorei Frei AG does

Bäckerei-Konditorei Frei AG is a privately held, family-controlled Swiss Aktiengesellschaft that operates an integrated bakery, Konditorei (pastry), and Confiserie (chocolate/confectionery) business from its headquarters and production facility at Landstrasse 93, 5415 Nussbaumen in Canton Aargau. Founded in 1967 by Toni and Marianne Frei and now led by their sons Dominik Frei and Hansjörg Frei, the company runs 14 owned retail locations across Cantons Aargau and Zürich, of which nine include integrated cafés and seven operate seven days a week including Sundays. Core production centres on long-fermentation bread (6 to 48-hour Liegezeit), artisan pastries, custom tortes, and Grand Cru Couverture chocolates supplied by Max Felchlin AG, with confectionery production having been relocated and expanded to a dedicated Wettingen facility in 2017.

The product portfolio spans Spezialbrot (UrDinkel, Aargauerbrot, Obsiga, Birebrot), Dessert/Torten (including wedding and celebration cakes configurable online), Schokoladenwelt (pralinés, truffles, Grand Cru squares), Apéro (canapés and party breads), and Hausgemacht items such as jams with 66% fruit content. Revenue is generated through three channels: (1) direct-to-consumer retail across the 14 locations plus walk-in café service, (2) B2B corporate sales (Apéro platters, meeting catering, personalised chocolates with company branding, gift boxes) supported by a dedicated sales team and a 20% first-order discount for new corporate customers, and (3) an online tortenshop (web-based cake configurator) for custom celebration orders. Customer engagement is reinforced by a bonVito loyalty card with reload bonuses (1-4%) and Klarna app integration, plus a periodic newsletter with a birthday-gift mechanic.

The company markets itself around regional sourcing (Knecht Mühle flour, Kaffee Graf coffee), traditional craftsmanship, family heritage (all four Frei children are active in the business), and Swiss Bakery Trophy recognition across multiple product categories. Operational footprint remains concentrated in two Swiss cantons, with no evidence of franchise, wholesale, or third-party distribution, and no disclosed external capital, M&A buyer interest, or public listing.

Name

Bäckerei-Konditorei Frei AG

Legal name

Bäckerei-Konditorei Frei AG

Website

https://baeckerei-frei.ch

Company type

Private

Founded year

1967

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

Bäckerei-Konditorei Frei AG is a family-owned Swiss bakery, Konditorei, and Confiserie operating 14 retail locations across Cantons Aargau and Zürich, serving individual consumers with long-fermentation artisan breads, pastries, custom cakes, and Grand Cru chocolates, plus corporate catering clients with Apéro and personalised gift solutions.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Artisanal Bakery and Confectionery

NAICS

Retail Bakeries (311811), Bakeries and Tortilla Manufacturing (3118), Commercial Bakeries (311812), Sugar and Confectionery Product Manufacturing (3113)

SIC

Bakery Products (2050), Sugar & Confectionery Products (2060)

akta.pro primary industry

Patisseries & Dessert Boutiques (CRAHAGAB)

akta.pro secondary industries

Chocolate & Confectionery Patisseries (Bonbons, Truffles, Macarons) (THAFAFAL), Pastry, Cakes & Desserts Wholesale (AFAIAFAB)

Keywords

• Artisan bakery products
• Specialty bread retail
• Confectionery and chocolates
• Pastry and torten
• Corporate catering services

Headquarters

HQ city

Nussbaumen

HQ country

Switzerland

HQ region

Europe

Offices12 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Hardware or Manufacturing

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Supply Chain, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Retail Bread, Pastry, and Confiserie Sales: Sale of fresh bakery products, pastries, chocolates, and café items across 14 owned retail locations in Aargau and Zürich. Mix of bread shops, cafés with seating, and take-away focused outlets.
2. Corporate / Event Catering: B2B sales of Apéro platters, canapés, desserts, personalised chocolates, and gift boxes for corporate events, customer gifts, and meeting catering. Customised offerings with company branding available.
3. Cake and Torte Configurator (Online): Online torten shop where customers configure and order custom cakes, wedding cakes, and celebration tortes via a web-based configurator.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Bäckerei-Konditorei Frei AG is a Swiss artisanal bakery, patisserie, and confectionery producer that manufactures specialty breads, torten/desserts, fine chocolates, apéro platters, and house-made spreads, and sells them through 14 retail locations across the cantons of Aargau and Zürich, supplemented by corporate catering, gift services, and an online cake configurator. The company combines in-house production (including long-fermentation bread and a dedicated Confiserie facility) with a multi-format retail footprint that includes traditional bakeries, cafés, and show bakeries.

Product overview

Bäckerei-Konditorei Frei AG operates a multi-format bakery-pastry-café business with 14 locations in Aargau and Zürich cantons. The core offering comprises specialty breads (Spezialbrot) featuring traditional long-fermentation methods (6-48 hours Liegezeit), patisserie products (Dessert/Torten) including custom celebration and wedding cakes, a Grand Cru Confiserie (Schokoladenwelt) with premium chocolates, Apéro catering products, and house-made items. The business operates an online cake ordering platform (Tortenshop) via a web configurator, maintains a customer loyalty program (Kundenkarte) powered by bonVito, and provides corporate catering services (Firmen). Nine of the fourteen locations include café operations, and seven are open on Sundays.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Confiserie Freya: Acquired in 2017; confectionery brand whose production was relocated to Wettingen.
• Himmel GmbH

Products and services

• Specialty Breads (Spezialbrot)

Quantifiable outcome

• Swiss Bakery Trophy — multiple gold, silver, and bronze medals across product categories (Luusbueb bronze, Aargauerbrot Ruch/Hell gold, St. Gallerbrot bronze, Linzertorte silver, Birebrot gold, Obsiga gold, UrDinkel Birebrot gold, Grüess gold, Carré süss silver, Grand Cru Truffes bronze, Frei’s Träumli bronze, Aargauer Rüeblitorte medal)

Named customers2 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Knecht MühlecoreOthersPrimary flour supplier, a traditional family milling business in Leibstadt. Knecht Mühle sources grain from regional farmers. Long-term strategic partnership for the most critical raw material.
• Kaffee GrafcoreOthersCoffee beans sourced, freshly roasted daily, and delivered from Graf Kaffee in Baden-Dättwil. Direct relationship with coffee farmers during harvest seasons in Central and South America.
• Max Felchlin AGcoreOthersGrand Cru Couverture supplier for Confiserie products. Felchlin guarantees high quality and full traceability from cacao farmers in Venezuela (Sur del Lago/Maracaibo region, family Franceschi) to the finished chocolate. Felchlin's Maracaibo Clasificado was named world's best chocolate.
• CarmaminorOthersUTZ-certified sustainable cocoa used for Carma couverture products. Carma's mission is 100% sustainable chocolate production, covering all ingredients and processes.
• To Good To GominorOthersSurprise food boxes sold via the To Good To Go app, allowing customers to collect leftover food at end of day. Reduces food waste while generating additional revenue from perishable inventory.
• bonVitocoreOthersCustomer loyalty card platform (bonVito). Enables digital stamp collection, points management, cashless payments, and discount tracking across all 14 locations.
• arwo Stiftung (Arwo)minorOthersDisabled persons' workshop in Wettingen that produces the red cloth napkins (Stofftüechli) used for jam/preserve packaging. Social enterprise partnership supporting local community.
• Altenburg-Garage AGminorOthersListed as a partner supplier, presumably for vehicle/fleet services supporting delivery and logistics operations.
• illyminorOthersListed as a partner, presumably coffee supply for select locations.
• Bernardini + Schnyder GmbHminorOthersWebsite concept and production agency responsible for the baeckerei-frei.ch website design and development.
• klarnaminorOthersPayment app integration allowing the customer loyalty card to be stored and used via the Klarna app across multiple users.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves13 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Others

• Max Felchlin AG: Felchlin is the premium Swiss Grand Cru Couverture chocolate producer that supplies Frei's confiserie line; Felchlin's Maracaibo Clasificado was named the world's best chocolate. Not a direct competitor — included because it is Frei's most strategic chocolate supplier and an enabler of the Grand Cru positioning that differentiates Frei.

Direct peers

• Läderach (Confiserie Läderach AG): Läderach is a premium Swiss chocolatier with a growing international retail footprint, known for fresh-handcrafted chocolate, Praliné, and gift products made with high-couverture content. Comparable to Frei on premium chocolate craftsmanship and gift-box merchandising, though with broader international distribution.
• Confiserie Sprüngli AG: Sprüngli is Switzerland's most iconic premium confectionery and pastry chain, with flagship cafés in Zürich and other cities selling Grand Cru chocolates, Luxemburgerli, pastries, and cakes. Directly comparable to Frei on the premium confectionery/patisserie-with-café model, though at national-brand scale and concentrated in Zürich.
• Villars Maître Chocolatier: Villars is a long-established Swiss chocolate manufacturer and retailer producing traditional and Grand Cru chocolate, pralinés, and confectionery through owned boutiques and wholesale. Directly comparable to Frei on the traditional Swiss confectionery heritage positioning and retail-confiserie business model.
• Hug AG (Max Felchlin competitor): Hug is a Swiss confectionery and biscuit producer with a long heritage, producing chocolates, biscuits, and seasonal confectionery for retail and gifting. Comparable to Frei's Confiserie line on Swiss heritage confiserie positioning, though operating more at wholesale/grocery scale than café-retail.

Broad incumbents

• Jowa AG: Jowa AG is the bakery arm of the Migros cooperative and the largest industrial bakery operator in Switzerland, producing bread, pastries, and confectionery for retail and foodservice. It is a broad incumbent with overlapping capabilities to Frei but at industrial scale rather than the artisan, multi-format retail model Frei operates.
• Hiestand Holding AG: Hiestand is one of Switzerland's largest bakery manufacturers, producing frozen and fresh bread, pastries, and snack products for retail, foodservice, and convenience channels. Comparable to Frei as a Swiss bakery producer but operating at a much larger, more industrial scale and primarily through B2B distribution.

Emerging players

• J. & A. Frischknecht Confiserie AG: Frischknecht is a long-standing Swiss confiserie-retailer based in the Aargau/Zürich region producing chocolates, pastries, and café-format offerings. Comparable to Frei as a regional Swiss confiserie with cafés and seasonal gifting, operating in partially overlapping geography.
• Fredy Wiesner Spitzbueb AG: Wiesner Spitzbueb is a Swiss specialty confectionery brand known for artisanal chocolate-coated marshmallow and seasonal confectionery, distributed via retail and gift channels. Comparable to Frei as a Swiss confiserie/gift player, though with a narrower, more seasonal product focus.

Regional players

• Bäckerei Stocker (Stocker Beck AG): Stocker Beck is a multi-location artisanal bakery and pastry business in the Zürich/Aargau region with similar café-bakery formats. Comparable to Frei as a family-owned regional multi-site artisan bakery serving overlapping Swiss-German cantons, though with smaller confiserie exposure.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/b%C3%A4ckerei-konditorei-frei-ag

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Bäckerei-Konditorei Frei AG