“Schaffen ud Streben ist Gottes Gebot –
Arbeit heißt Leben – Stillstand der Tod.”
(”Creation and endeavor are God’s commandment —
work is life, stoppage death..”)
That ancestral sentence hung in Otto Schütt’s family company’s office in Lütjenburg. Every day I read those words, they cost me my head, so they became the guiding principle of my professional activities.
My grandfather Otto Schütt was born in 1870 as the fourth child of farmer Joachim Schütt in Qualitz, Mecklenburg area.
After his simple childhood and youth, he began studying at the bakery master Albrecht in Bruel (Mecklenburg) in 1887. The exploration years in Mecklenburg and Schleswig-Holstein made him an excellent expert..
Near Lübeck at Gross-Grönaus, where he worked as a master, he got to know and love shop worker Miss Anna Scharrenberg. He married Anna in 1894 and raised four children together. That same year, they managed to acquire a bakery in Bahnhofstrass, Grevesmullen, for 700 gold marks.
Thanks to enormous work, excellent professional skills and iron austerity, they were able to work the company up to best local bakery in the years to come. Colleagues in Grevesmühlen chose my grandfather thanks to his excellent personality traits, professional skills and breakthrough ability to lead the bakery Union in the region.
1st World War brought an abrupt end to the aspirations. Two sons, of whom Otto was to secure his successor, fell for the fatherland.
My grandfather, Willi, the third son, had meanwhile learned a clear pastry shop at the Weinrebes in Schwerin (Mecklenburg) and had emerged as a good champion. Now, to ensure the continuity of the company, he also had to study to become a baker.
In 1925, my grandfather married the steward’s daughter Gertrud Bahrens, who was from Hamberge near Grevesmiühlen. On 1926 my father was born.
Grandfather, who went to the Army in August 1939, fell in 1943.
From 1940 to 1943, my father also studied bakery skills at Lübz (Mecklenburg). Our business in Grevesmuklin was turned into a cooperative under political circumstances and later shut down.
Jobs in and around Lütjenburg provided my father with the necessary professional skills to pass the 1948 Masters Test in Armsberg (Westfalen). The recommendations of his colleagues and vocational schools allowed him to start studying at the vocational educational academy in Solingen (Westfalen). My father then got a chance to acquire a tiny bakery in Lütjenburg.
Along with her late husband Erna, born Liebenow, she built a bakery throughout Lütjenburg and was a recognized company. 1955 marriage was registered and on 1959 Otto Schütt was born. Many honorary posts from social and professional spheres and technical schools in the District of Plön (Holstein) testify his approach to life.
In 1974, my mother’s death put a painful seal on all development efforts. My father had great luck finding Käthes, with birth-name Brandt, a great supporter and life partner, became his second wife.
After bakery studies at the bakery master Willi Wäger in Mönkeberg (Schleswig-Holstein), a master’s examination and studies in the teaching profession of a higher occupational school at the University of Hamburg, I was granted a consultant’s place for Estonia through the grain processing Institute. It soon emerged that a positive development in the food and bakery industry would only be possible if modern technology and raw materials were introduced in companies.
Continuing these family traditions, I founded the company Balt-Hellin in Tartu in 1993. It evolved in the following years from a sole supplier of bakery and confectionary to a leading food-service company in the Baltic States. But it was always Balt-Hellin’s goal not only to supply customers with premium supplier products, but also to help them with recipes, ideas and personal commitment.
History of the company
BALT-HELLIN was founded in 1993 by Bakery Master Otto Schütt and entered in the Tartu commercial Register on 11.09.1996 under number 10124134 as a public limited company.
Otto Schütt, a fourth-generation representative of a small German bakery family, wanted to offer services and products to bakery, confectionary and catering companies in the Baltic States and the food industry that he had learned to evaluate during his years of study and migration in Western Europe. To date, we also supply hostels and hotels, large kitchens, canteens and ferries.
As A trading company, AS BALT-HELLIN provides bakeries, pastry and catering establishments and the food industry with the raw materials of Western European and international origin that they need for their work. Well-known and well-respected international partners support us in developing and further developing our products, not just our supply.
In 2022, the company was bought by JNG Investments group, after Otto Schütt left due to severe illness . The new owner values the legacy and ethics of Balt-Hellin and continues the foodservice mission Otto once had.
We don’t leave our customer alone: we help him optimize products. In our own bakery work consultants who look after new ideas and good results to be used by direct customers.
Of course, we’re also dealing with sales because that’s what we live on. Our other services are available free of charge to customers. If you subscribe TODAY, whether by sales representative, telephone, e-mail or in our online ordering system, you will usually receive the ORDERED item the next business day. Promise is promise. Try it out.
