COPENHAGEN — In Denmark, a country famed for its pastry, baking is serious business. And in recent years, two bakery chains, Lagkagehuset — which translates as The Cake House — and Emmerys, have proved that in hard economic times carbohydrates are as good as gold here.
Lagkagehuset is the brainchild of Ole Kristoffersen and Steen Skallebaek, two bakers who ran their own shops through the 1990s before joining forces in 2008. In 2009, FSN Capital Partners, a private equity investment firm based in Oslo, bought 70 percent of the business, allowing it to grow into what has since become a bakery phenomenon.
“We saw a hole in the market” said Mr. Kristoffersen, now the chief executive of the company. “It was about taking what we already had to the next level.”
Lagkagehuset woos its customers with a mix of traditional pastries — heavy on butter, sugar, and guilt — and healthy, hearty, fresh-baked bread. In its shops, styled as luxurious, modernist spaces, loaves and cakes are displayed like precious gemstones, behind thick protective walls of glass.
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