The iconic Van Breemen bakery on Laarderweg in Bussum will close its doors for good this weekend. Since 1920, four generations have baked bread, sweets and chocolate for the village, but baker Marc van Breemen has now stopped doing so. “I’m just too busy, I only have three days off a year,” said the 55-year-old baker.
Bakker stops after 102 years – NH Nieuws
A decision that the previous generation of Van Breemen is only happy with. “I think it’s a nice ending,” said his mother Anneke, who ran the business for Marc with her husband Co. “I am very happy that he is stopping. Every time you worry about: is it still going well? Because you are working yourself to death in the Dutch way. Well, we don’t want that.”
Marc himself is not too concerned about his health, but the workload is certainly one of the reasons why he quits. “There are always several reasons why you stop. It’s fine, I have a different use for the property.” He is going to convert the bakery into apartments, to provide his daughter, but also himself with living space. “Then I can keep an eye on her a bit,” he jokes.
“I have no illusions that without our bakery we will end up in a famine”
With the closure, the Van Breemen family also has to look for a good baker for its own bread for the first time. “Of course we just got that out of the case,” laughs mother Anneke. “But I have no illusions that without our bakery we will end up in a famine”, Marc adds.
well done
Nevertheless, the beautiful marzipan creations, with which Marc regularly news did not leave Bussum completely. “If fellow bakers need help, they know they can call me.” That attitude will only cost him his first rest day. “On Monday morning I help the first one, but luckily I can sleep in,” said Marc, who was normally in the bakery at three o’clock. “I don’t have to be there until half past five,” he laughs.