Wicklein: Tradition and Innovation since 1615

Wicklein is the oldest surviving gingerbread bakery in Nuremberg. Our history began in 1615, at a time when Nuremberg, due to its central location in Europe, was a hub of international spice trade. The dense imperial forests provided ideal conditions for beekeeping, which was known as "Zeidlerwesen" in Franconia. Spices and honey formed the basis for the delicious gingerbread baked for special occasions such as the visit of the Emperor. Strict rules of the "Lebküchner-Ordnung" ensured highest quality even back then, a principle to which we still feel committed today.

1643

The beginnings: Johann Jäckel and his descendants

One year before founding his own bakery, Auerbach's Johann Jäckel acquired the master's rights. Twenty-eight years later, his son Hans moved to Nuremberg, married Barbara Nußberger from an established gingerbread family, and together, they established a tradition that was passed down from generation to generation – and still continues: the ambition to be the best gingerbread bakery in town and the character as a reliable family business. Challenges and Crises The Jäckel dynasty survived numerous crises. In 1889, Kunigunda Jäckel married Gottfried Wicklein from Lower Franconia, who took over the responsibility for the famous gingerbread bakery after the death of his father-in-law in 1915. Despite the classification of gingerbread as a luxury item during wartime economy and the destruction of the factory in the bombing raids, Gottfried Wicklein rebuilt the company after 1945 with great vigor.

1889-1945

Challenges and crises

The Jäckel dynasty survived numerous crises. In 1889, Kunigunda Jäckel married Gottfried Wicklein from Lower Franconia, who took over responsibility for the famous gingerbread factory after the death of his father-in-law in 1915. Despite the classification of gingerbread as a luxury product during the war economy and the destruction of the factory in the hail of bombs, Gottfried Wicklein rebuilt the company with great energy after 1945.

1988

Modernization and expansion

Unter der Leitung von Karl Wicklein und seiner Schwester Christa Walter wurde die Produktion ausgebaut. Die Einführung moderner Backstraßen und die Beschäftigung zusätzlicher Saisonkräfte ermöglichten eine effizientere Fertigung. Nach Karls frühem Tod führte Christa das Werk weiterund übergab es schließlich an ihren Sohn Ernst August, einen gelernten Zuckerbäcker, Mit seinem Ausscheiden endete 1988 die Geschichte als familiengeführtes Unternehmen. Das Selbstverständnis als Traditionshaus, das sich noch immer den Werten, Idealen und Qualitätsansprüchen seiner Gründer verpflichtet fühlt, besteht jedoch bis heute fort.

2010s

Innovations and international markets

In recent years, Wicklein has continuously evolved: With innovative and multi-award-winning products, premium packaging solutions, attractive and original presentations in the food retail sector, as well as a careful but steady expansion into international markets such as Japan, the Middle East, or the USA, we have become a modern supplier of high-quality year-round pastries and a market leader in gingerbread and Christmas pastries in the southern German region.

2017

The gingerbread industry and sustainability

In 2017, we opened our flagship store "Die Lebküchnerei" at Nuremberg's main market, the world's largest gingerbread specialty store with an attached bakery. In 2023, we became the first gingerbread manufacturer to receive the ZNU certificate "Sustainable Business Practices." Today, our group of companies, whose main shareholder is a non-profit foundation, is committed to numerous social, societal, and cultural projects in the region.

2024

Future and values

At Wicklein, profit maximization is not the primary focus, but rather the cultivation and further development of a traditional brand. Our long history will continue to be written in the future—with great people, exciting developments, and unique products and flavor compositions that are appreciated worldwide from Nuremberg.

Nuremberg

Nuremberg:
The Gingerbread Capital

The Franconian metropolis Nuremberg is known worldwide as the gingerbread capital. Already in the Middle Ages, valuable spices were traded here, which still form the basis for every gingerbread recipe today. Wicklein, the oldest existing gingerbread manufacturer in the city, uses its own secret recipe that has been passed down for generations. For about four centuries, the company has had its production facility here and will continue to do so in the future.

Nuremberg Gingerbread:
Protected Geographical Indication

Nuremberg gingerbread may only be called such if it is baked within the city limits. Since 1996, a regulation of the European Union has governed this, classifying this specialty as a "protected geographical indication." This prevents products from entering the market that bear this origin designation only for marketing purposes. Wicklein feels particularly committed to this tradition and ensures that the craft tradition is preserved and used for new flavor creations.

Lebkuchen Tradition
in the Nuremberg Cityscape

In the Nuremberg cityscape, gingerbread is present throughout the year. In smaller shops with attached bakeries like our "Lebküchnerei" or larger production facilities like our modern plant in the south of Nuremberg, gingerbread is baked fresh all year round. The wonderful aroma is omnipresent and attracts many guests from near and far. They like to bring a culinary greeting from Nuremberg to their families and friends.

Sustainability

Fairtrade Chocolate

Since 2019, all Wicklein baked goods have been made exclusively with certified Fairtrade cocoa. The strict guidelines for this certification are locally monitored by the organization Flocert. This guarantees, for example, a minimum price that enables smallholder farms in the producing countries to have a stable and predictable income and serves as a safety net against price fluctuations in the world market. Child labor and forced labor are explicitly prohibited in fair trade. In addition, the cultivation of cocoa plants is done in a particularly gentle manner to protect resources. This is our contribution to significantly increasing the market share of Fairtrade cocoa in Germany, which is currently at ten percent.

Use of Green Energy

A company that produces baked goods naturally requires a lot of energy. During the main season, our production facilities are in operation around the clock. And of course, our gingerbread and other pastries must be cooled immediately after production to keep them fresh. To improve our carbon footprint here, we have been using exclusively so-called green energy from renewable sources since 2020, which meets the particularly stringent TÜV criteria of the CMS standard for renewable energies. We are also gradually converting our machines to more efficient systems. This alone enabled us to save 2,085 tons of CO2 last year, equivalent to the total emissions of around 50 four-person households per year.

Reduction of Packaging Material

The packaging of our products must not only meet our high internal quality standards: Our customers also rightly expect our pastries to remain fresh and tasty for as long as possible. Nevertheless, we are also working intensively in this area on solutions that help us use as little packaging material as possible to protect the environment. All new products are examined before their market launch to determine how they can be packaged in the most material-saving way possible. We strive to use cartons, blister packs, films, or bags that are up to 100% recyclable. And our decorative tins or chests made of high-quality metal have been collected by many of our customers for decades and reused in households.

Company Premises as Home for Bees

Already in the Middle Ages, honey production around Nuremberg was one of the city's most important trades. The dense imperial forests, which also surround our company premises, provided the ideal home for wild bees. And traditionally, natural honey has also been one of the traditional ingredients in many Wicklein products. To make a visible statement for the preservation of city and wild bees and to sensitize both our employees and our customers, we have settled four bee colonies on our company premises and planted the surrounding area to be bee-friendly.

Promotion of Employee Health

The health of our employees is very important to us. For example, we support in-house sports groups in sports such as football, cycling, running, or squash and cooperate with the AOK, which offers prevention courses, preventive examinations, and other health promotion measures in our company. In this context, we have been offering a subsidized company bicycle leasing model for a year now, the usage rate of which is expected to increase from initially 3.5 percent to 8 percent of all permanent staff this year. By the end of 2025, we aim to have one in ten employees take advantage of this offer. We also participate in the so-called "Job Ticket" of the Nuremberg public transport company, which we make particularly attractive with a financial subsidy. Our goal here is to achieve a usage rate of 20 percent within our core workforce by 2025. But we also want to offer an attractive and environmentally friendly alternative to conventional combustion engine cars to all employees who rely on a car. Therefore, we have installed four electric charging stations in our company parking lot, where our employees can recharge their electric or hybrid vehicles at cost price. This contributes to a significant reduction in the corresponding share of commuting in our CO2 footprint: currently, this share is still 16 percent.

Transition to FSC Certified Paper Products

Despite all reduction measures, paper and cardboard cannot be completely avoided due to food safety reasons alone. Therefore, it is all the more important to us that the materials used are produced as environmentally friendly as possible. That's why we have set ourselves the goal of completely transitioning all paper products of our company to FSC certified products by the year 2025. Currently, the FSC share is already around 90 percent. The FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) is the only organization worldwide that ensures uniform principles for environmentally, socially, and economically sound forest management. It aims to place a significant portion of the world's forests under sustainable management. Controversial wood sources are absolutely off-limits for the FSC, and thus for us as well. In recent years, we have already transitioned our entire accounting system to electronic documents wherever possible. Where paper cannot be completely avoided, we now use pure recycled paper instead of fresh fiber paper, marked with the "Blue Angel" as well as the EU Ecolabel, produced particularly resource-efficiently. And continuous in-house training measures encourage responsible paper handling.

Deployment of Energy-Efficient Lighting

In 2022, we began transitioning lighting fixtures in our administration and production facilities. In the first year alone, we saved 40,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity by installing energy-efficient LED lights. The measures of the following years added another 217,000 kWh of savings - this amount alone corresponds to the average total consumption of more than 40 three-person households per year. By the end of 2024, we will have completed the replacement of all existing lighting with modern LED systems. This will save an additional 180,000 kWh of electricity. In total, this corresponds to a reduction in energy consumption for our lighting by almost one-third. Since, as described above, we exclusively source our electricity from renewable sources, this no longer used quota can be provided to other consumers as sustainable green energy.

Quality Guarantee

In each of our baked goods lies not only masterful baking craftsmanship with over 400 years of experience. We also produce our specialties with great care and love. Only the highest quality ingredients, from exquisite spices to hand-selected nuts and almonds to premium flour, create the unique flavor appreciated by connoisseurs around the world. The numerous awards our products receive every year confirm the high-quality standards we impose on ourselves. We are somewhat proud of that. The careful treatment of nature and its resources, as well as fair cooperation with our trading partners around the world, are written into our strict "Code of Conduct" and are part of our identity.

DLG

Our products are awarded medals by the German Agricultural Society DLG year after year: In the past year alone, 21 out of 22 submitted products received the highest status of "Gold," one product achieved "Silver." For the 14th consecutive time, Wicklein has also been honored by the DLG with the "Award for Long-Term Product Quality." The corporate award stands for consistent quality efforts and is only given when food has been regularly and successfully tested by the DLG for at least five years.

Fairtrade

For many years, we have only used chocolate products that are certified with the Fairtrade seal. The standards for this must be adhered to throughout the entire value chain and include social, environmental, and economic criteria. These include regulated working conditions, the prohibition of discrimination, the payment of minimum wages, environmentally friendly cultivation, or the avoidance of genetically modified seeds

IFS

IFS Food is an international standard for assessing the conformity of products and processes regarding food safety and quality. The "IFS – International Featured Standard Food" applies to suppliers at all stages of food processing. This is to convey that we work particularly carefully in the areas of food safety, quality, or compliance with legal requirements. Audits are conducted annually in unannounced audits.

Vegan

The so-called "V-Label" is an internationally recognized and protected brand for labeling vegetarian and vegan products. For consumers, it provides a simple and safe guide. Uniform criteria and regular checks make the V-Label a unique quality seal throughout Europe. Accordingly, our products bearing the Vegan V-Label must not be produced using living animals or animal products.

ZNU

Since 2023, Wicklein has been certified according to the demanding ZNU standard for sustainable business practices. This is the only practice-tested and implemented standard for sustainable business practices that integrates all three dimensions of environment, economy, and society and calls for and promotes the development of an integrated management system for more sustainable business practices.

Organic

Our organic products meet the strict standards of EU regulations for organic farming and are accordingly marked with the EU organic label. Organic farms must, for instance, accurately record what they have bought from whom and what they have sold to whom. This allows our organic products to be traced back to the producer. Officially approved private control bodies inspect the entire operation at least once a year and also carry out unannounced spot checks on producers and processors. The work of the control bodies is in turn monitored by the state. This ensures that our customers can trust that what is labeled as organic truly is organic.

Our Mission

Our mission drives us and provides guidance for our entire company: We stand for high-quality enjoyment and small moments of happiness throughout the year. We work daily for high quality of our products, services, and processes with the aim of not only meeting but exceeding the expectations of our customers. We use our resources economically, sustainably, and ecologically. We pursue our goals together with passion and consistency and have the courage to develop new successful ideas. And we are a reliable partner for our customers and a responsible employer for all employees.

High-quality enjoyment and moments of happiness

We offer high-quality enjoyment and moments of happiness all year round.

High quality of our products, services and processes

We work every day to ensure the high quality of our products, services and processes with the aim of not meeting customer expectations but exceeding them.

Economical, sustainable and ecological

We use our resources economically, sustainably and ecologically.

Together with passion and consistency

Together, we pursue our goals with passion and consistency.

Courage to develop new ideas

We have the courage to develop new ideas and make them successful.

Reliable partner and employer

We are a reliable partner for our customers and a responsible employer for our employees.

Social, social and cultural commitment

We are committed to social, social and cultural projects in our home region.

About Us