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“We are normal in the lives of many people” | Economy

Anna Elias, owner of the Elias bakery, in Barcelona.MASSIMILIANO MINOCRI

The last thing that goes through Anna Elias's mind is turning off the oven. At the helm of a fourth-generation family bakery, it is engraved in his brain that bread is a staple food. And he also knows that the Forn Elias, on Calle Rogent in Barcelona, is more than a business. “In the neighborhood we are an institution.” Behind the counter they know the names of all the customers. They know what each family buys each day of the week. They serve bread to the surrounding schools. And at Christmas, half the neighborhood brings the casseroles or casseroles with chickens, turkeys and stews to the bakery to cook them in its rotating oven, five meters in diameter. It is one of those shops where neighbors leave their house keys alone for someone to pick them up.

Anna and her son Enric, from the workshop, have faced the coronavirus crisis with the trade and the responsibility of always. They continue to bake bread with the hygienic-sanitary measures that it touches, now more demanding. They have adapted the production to the circumstances: “People have asked again for large loaves, weighing a kilo, and they only come twice a week.” They open only in the morning: “To prevent people from leaving the house more than is essential.” And they bring breads to the homes of older customers. “They are women who spent the war with my parents, who protected themselves from the bombs in the same shelter.” The masks that clients use during the crisis have introduced another novelty behind the counter: “We don't see people's mouths, we have learned to read expressions and smiles in the eyes.”

To protect employees and customers, at the bakery they decided to make two teams and not match each other. They take turns: one day some work, and the next day the others rest and work. The turnover has fallen by 40%, but for now the boss does not plan to take any drastic measures: “We are a family, together we will fix it, we are doing nothing for the summer festivities,” says optimist. There is no fear, he says. But from the tension he has got a red eye.

And what would Jaume, the patriarch, who died two years ago, say about all this? “He would say that there is not so much, that spending a war was worse … although now we do not see the enemy,” sighs the daughter. Asked what the worst situation the Forn Elias has faced in its century of history has been, Anna does not doubt: “The blackout that caused the fire of an electrical substation in the neighborhood. We cooked all the bread that we could with the heat that the oven had and we gave it away ”. “Today is different, it is like a science fiction movie and somehow we feel like heroines, because we are the normality in the lives of many people. And I think I speak for the majority of artisan bakers. ”

From the Bakers' Guild, its president, Jaume Bertran, agrees with Anna Elias in the role of the bakers, but alerts colleagues that “they do not even pay to pay salaries.” “In cases of need, bakers have always been at the forefront. For better and for worse we have endured, not all trades have this attitude, but it is one thing how we feel and another how we are at a business level or the fear that some employees may have of having to work, which is understandable. ” Bertran explains that neighborhood bakeries, with fixed and proximity customers, are the ones that are holding up the best. Worse are those in the center –because it is deserted and there are few neighbors-, those with a cafeteria area, which provided the bulk of the turnover, or those that served restaurants. They have also closed a good part of the industrial bakeries, which do not have a workshop and are limited to finishing cooking the genre.

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