Underground bakery

How catering giant conquers the airport basement

The mini Linzer cakes are baked in Hörsching for the ÖBB restaurants.(Bild: Markus Wenzel)

To the right of the entrance is the Frederick & Sons restaurant, to the front left of the display board is the security checkpoint, in between are the check-in desks - travelers at Linz Airport see all of this when they enter the departure hall. What hardly anyone knows is that one floor below, the ovens here at the airport are running hot.

Storage areas and technology are housed in the basement of Linz Airport, as are the simulator rooms of the RotorSky helicopter school. Baking and cooking are also carried out in the well-protected security area in the immediate vicinity.

This is because the DoN Group, Austria's largest private catering company, has set up a kitchen and bakery directly under the departure hall with the check-in counters. "We use the location to supply other sites from here - especially when costs are rising, we try to leverage synergies," explains Managing Director Christian Hölbl.

Bakehouse in operation since February 2022
The company has been operating at the airport for almost six years, running the Frederick & Sons restaurant as well as the catering and duty-free store at the departure gates. Little by little, the company has also conquered the premises away from the areas that travelers see. The bakery, for example, was only opened in February 2022.

Apple and quark strudel, various cakes such as Black Forest cake, Nutella cheesecakes and chocolate brownies are made here, but desserts for the VaPiano restaurants belonging to the company are also produced in Hörsching.

Company boss is a trained confectioner
Chef Josef Donhauser also remains true to his roots with the patisserie. Donhauser himself is a trained confectioner. His parents' business in Kirchberg am Wechsel also produced for DoN for a long time, but no longer does. "Everything we produced there has moved to Linz, so to speak," says Hölbl. This also applied to the production machines that moved from Lower Austria to Upper Austria.

The kitchen and bakery team is small, but the signs are pointing to growth. "With 15 employees, we will be at full capacity," says Georg Reichenvater from DoNs Catering Linz GmbH. The business has also been expanded at the airport itself. Since the comeback of the Frankfurt connection, the company has been responsible for catering passengers on Austrian Airlines flights operated by Braathens Regional Airlines.

Speaking of airport catering: this is not new territory in Linz, as DoN is already active in this segment in Vienna. "We have two major customers: Air India, which we cater for from Vienna, and we have also been working with Wizz Air since November 1," reveals Hölbl.

The group currently has 2000 employees, the majority of whom are based in Austria. There is plenty to do, because in addition to the classic catering business, the company also operates various restaurants, such as Das Anton in the Musiktheater in Linz or Bruckner's in the Brucknerhaus in Linz, as well as four Subway branches and 12 VaPiano restaurants. In Vienna, the Burgtheater, Musiktheater an der Wien, Cobenzl and the Parkcafé at Belvedere Palace are behind the culinary offerings.