• "I had a little flour in my blood when I entered college", says András Ignác, former general manager and current chairman of the Board of Directors of the most powerful milling and bakery company in Harghita
"I was born in a mill, the mill in Bățanii Mari, a commune in Covasna, where my father had started working as an apprentice and had become the main miller. Later, being the eldest son, my father said he was going to make me a miller, and I, growing up with this idea, said: "OK, then I'm going to be a miller"", says amused András Ignác, the man who for more than 43 years led the destinies of the largest milling and bakery company in Harghita, known today under the brand "Harmopan", a successful combination of the traditions of the area with the new trends.
Three generations of András in the Lueta mill
The old mill in Bățanii Mari has now been dusted, says András Ignác with regret, who confesses that he has few memories of that place. Instead, his destiny and that of his family is linked to another small mill, over 200 years old, from the village of Lueta in Harghita.
In 1946, András Ignác was four years old when his father took his wife and children and returned to Lueta, the place of his birth where he had left at the age of 14 to learn a trade. The village community, which owned the mill, had asked him to come back and be a miller here. Since then, in the old stone mill in Lueta, three generations of millers from the András family have been grinding the grains.
The magic of millstones, science and craft art
The documents of the village of Lueta show that the community mill was built right in front of the church here, around 1780.
The two millstones, weighing almost a ton each, with which they still grind today, were bought in 1909. Until the 60s, when the mill was electrified, the stones were set in motion by a water-powered wheel. The old wooden wheel was placed outside the mill and turned under the force of the stream of water falling from two and a half meters, thus setting in motion all the grinding gear. But it was difficult, especially in the cold period, because when the water froze, everything was blocked. Unfortunately, says András Ignác, when the electric motor was installed, the old wooden wheel was abandoned and then lost. In the mill, however, time has not changed much. Grains of wheat, rye or corn still enter between the stones to be crushed, and the quality of the millstone, flour or sorghum, also depends on the skill of the miller. On the one hand, before each grinding, he must adjust the stones, that is, adjust the distance between the fixed stone, called in the lying area, and the mobile one, called the runner, which is set in motion by a shaft, in turn now operated by the electric motor, and in the past water. The distance between the stones gives the grain of the flour, finer or coarser. On the other hand, the life and quality of millstones depends on their maintenance.
Stone dressing, the name of the process of restoring (rectifying) the striations on the surface of the stones, into which the grains of wheat or other grains enter, is both science and art. The quality of the grind depends on the quality of this process (fermentation). It is a painstaking and precise operation, which is done manually, with a special hammer, just like hundreds of years ago. For almost a whole day the miller, or a skilled apprentice, hammers into the stone to restore its striations. András Ignác and his younger brother, Szilveszter, learned the art of blacksmithing from their father in the Lueta mill from childhood.
From father to son
"During the holidays, when I was a student, I kept helping my father at the mill. I already had flour in my blood, as they say, when I entered the Faculty of Food Technology in Galati. There was the only profile institute in the country for the food industry and it also had a specialization in milling and baking", recalls the former general manager of Harmopan SA. Life made it so that, years later, when András Ignác was newly appointed director of the Harghita Milling and Bakery Enterprise, the small mill in Lueta, where he had learned the secrets of flour from his father, came, for a short time, even under his command.
When his father retired, another András, Szilveszter, Ignác's younger brother, took his place in the Lueta mill. Now, the miller at Lueta is the third András, the son of Szilveszter. And András Ignác's son is carrying on the family tradition, being the current director of the Harmopan company, a position taken over after his father's retirement.
The director who was not fired after 1989
In 1965, the recent university graduate András Ignác was assigned to Târgu Mureș, in Mopan, at that time the Milling and Baking Company, and six years later, he returned home, to Miercurea Ciuc.
"From 71 to 74 I was a site manager and I was in charge of building the mineral water bottling stations for the factories in Sâncrăieni and Tușnad.
In 74, the director of the Milling-Bakery Factory in Harghita was changed and, because I also specialized in milling, our party made me director", says András Ignác. "And from then on, I was a director until the other party, the one after 1990", he jokes.
In the latter part of 1989, when "Ceaușescu had not died yet, but also the following year, when the gatekeepers already knew that the directors had to be fired", no employee asked director András Ignác to leave. It is now understandable why, because the director did his duty correctly: he kept what was good, he did not tear down anything just for the sake of change, and even more, he built, thus managing to keep the company on the line floating, in the economic chaos created by the transition from the socialist five-year plans to the fragility of the beginnings of the market economy. "In '89, during the Revolution or whatever it was then, in our company, neither during the events nor after, the production did not stop for a moment and we all continued our activity. I wasn't put in a position to be kicked out of the company either. Of course, this, like everything that was done until '90, was not forgotten and was not put to the ground, and that mattered, I say, a lot. As it was, not all industry in Romania was a pile of scrap metal, as Petre Roman declared at the time. I'm not saying that we could keep 100% Romanian industry, but 25-30% had to remain standing", believes the former director, who demonstrated that, through work and respect for employees, partners and customers, the milling and baking company he led was a profitable business.
The last train to success
In '95, András Ignác confesses, he caught "the last carriage of the last train" and managed to privatize the company using the MEBO method. This type of privatization involved the transfer of an economic unit from state ownership to employee ownership. The price of the shares was set by the state, and the shares could also be bought with ownership certificates or coupons, but only by the employees of the respective unit. "My greatest satisfaction now, after more than 22 years, is that more than 1.000 families of employees from the time of privatization are still benefiting from the results of this enterprise today, which, I think, means a lot. This is an achievement that very few companies can be proud of, at least in the counties of the region. The good relations with the employees have been preserved, proof that from '95 until now the shareholders have received dividends year after year. It is about the shareholders who own at least a package of 5.000 shares, out of the seven million with a value of one leu each, which represent the share capital of Harmopan SA", explains the current president of the Board of Directors. His lordship also characterizes the key to success with an English saying: you don't need many exceptional people, but compelling people who do their job well. "We didn't do anything exceptional either, we did our job the way it had to be done".
Harmopan heritage
Harmopan SA currently owns two production units in Miercurea-Ciuc, where the company headquarters is located, and one production unit each in the cities of Odorheiu Secuiesc, Cristuru Secuiesc, Gheorgheni and Topliţa. Within the platform that houses the administrative headquarters, there is also a wafer section, a wholesale warehouse, a non-stop retail store and a bistro. The company also operates and manages four mills - two for wheat, one for corn and one for rye - with a total grain storage capacity of over 5.000 tons, and a grinding capacity of 220 tons per day. A part of the products manufactured under the Harmopan brand is sold through its 39 own stores, throughout the territory of Harghita county, but also in the cities of Brasov, Sovata, Târgu-Mureş.
Balance between traditional products and market trends
Harmopan has earned its reputation as a keeper of traditions, especially traditional Szekler products. But at the same time, under the Harmopan brand, products from the new trends of the bakery market appear. "For example, we produce the traditional homemade bread, with potatoes, weighing 2 kg or a little more. The highest weight is now 2.200 g, although in the past it was also 3.000 g. In the last 17 years, we have not made bread weighing more than 2.500 g. At the moment, this product represents about 30% of bread production. For the rest, we focus on diversification, because now there is much more demand for bread made from wheat with as much extraction as possible, and bread made from wholemeal flour, black flour or with all kinds of additions and seeds. If you don't also offer these assortments, you can hardly cope, considering that the small units, almost all of them, make traditional bread, that is, they have taken over a lot of our traditional assortments", explains András Ignác. The requirements for specialty products have been around for about ten years, but the demand for new, specialty products has intensified in the last five years. "From the point of view of value, not quantity, with these specialties we reached about 40% of the production value. A change in consumer taste and demand is clearly visible. When I say specialties, I mean croissants, fringes, all products that weigh less than 200 g. But here I also mean bread with seeds, black bread with the addition of different seeds, even cereals, buns, etc. The dumplings, for example, are specific to our area, even a specialty that you can't find anywhere else", says András Ignác. Another specific product, which is requested in the summer, but which is not made in large quantities, is bread baked on cabbage leaves, a bread that comes from the old peasant households of Secuime. This bread also has a more special taste, because, when baking, the cabbage leaf is embedded in the crust, then the aroma reaches the core of the bread, giving it moisture and a special aroma.
The technological "revolution".
Looking back, from '74, when he was appointed director, until today, when he is the president of the Board of Directors, András Ignác believes that the most important transformations that the company went through, but also the biggest challenges came after the 90s . The company preserved the traditions, but also made a real technological "revolution", without which it would not have been able to stay in the tough competition of the market economy.
In the socialist state economy, almost all machines were of Romanian production. "The only bakery equipment factory was in Slatina, from where we had brought the tunnel ovens, with a fixed hearth. Steam heating tubes were manufactured in Baia Mare. For milling, machines were brought especially from Toplița, but there were several factories, and the semolina machines were made in Bucharest. In the 80s, round and long molding machines, the so-called mushroom (conical machine), but also dividing machines were already being produced. The problem with these machines, however, was their low reliability, we had many problems with their maintenance. For fringes, mechanization was made much easier. But, in our county, large bread was made, weighing 2, 3 and even 4 kg, and for that mechanization was almost non-existent and no solutions could be found. And now, for these large weights, there are still problems.
In those years, in those conditions, we were still trying to advance with technology and modernize, but we remained the same until '90. After that, the import opportunities came and slowly all kinds of companies came with various offers. The time had finally arrived when the dreams of re-engineering could become reality. Since then, the technological revolution has really been felt, moving from a lot of manufacturing to industrialization and advanced technology. Thus, up to now, many modernizations have been made both at the mills and at the bakery", recalls former director András Ignác. Currently, Harmopan SA owns the most advanced production technologies in baking and milling in the region.
