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Angel Bakeries ( Ma'afiyot Anjel), also known as Angel's Bakery, is the largest commercial bakery in Israel, producing 275,000 loaves of bread and 275,000 rolls daily and controlling 30 percent of the country's bread market. With a product line of 100 different types of bread products and 250 different types of cakes and cookies, Angel sells its goods in 32 company-owned outlets nationwide and distributes to 6,000 stores and hundreds of hotels and army bases. It also exports to the United States, United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Denmark.
Founded in 1927 in Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine by Salomon Angel, Angel Bakeries introduced to the Israeli market the first sliced bread, plant-based emulsion, and new baking technologies. It has always been family business, at first by Salomon with his brothers and sons, then by Salomon's grandsons, and today by Salomon's great-grandsons. The company, Salomon A. Angel Ltd., is publicly traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, with a turnover of $180 million in 2008.
Angel became a successful dry-goods merchant, traveling regularly to Alexandria, Damascus, and Beirut to buy flour and other basic foodstuffs to sell in Jerusalem. In 1927 one of Angel's customers, the Trachtenberg Bakery in Bayit VeGan, went Bankruptcy. Angel decided to pay off the bakery's debts and assume ownership, bringing in his father Avraham and three brothers as partners. A few years later, two of his brothers, Leon and Refael, left to open their own bakery in Haifa.
Angel improved the bread-making operation by introducing Israel's first automated weighing machines and investing in new production lines. He often slept overnight at the bakery during the week and returned to his home in Talpiot when the bakery was closed on Shabbat. Later he built an apartment over the bakery to house his family. In the 1930s, the bakery employed 25 workers and had one production line that turned out 8,500 loaves per day. It delivered bread to stores in two trucks and a horse and wagon. During World War II, the bakery contracted to supply bread to the British army, necessitating the purchase of large American-made ovens that could turn out 540 loaves per hour.
Angel's Bakery played a key role in feeding Jerusalem residents during the 1948 War of Independence. When Arabs lay siege to the city and attacked that attempted to bring food and supplies through the narrow mountain pass from Tel Aviv, water and flour were in short supply. Fire trucks were employed to shuttle water to the bakery and "flour was swept up off the bakery floor". Angel's son Danny, who was a Haganah fighter defending the besieged Old City, recalled that the bakery would send bread in convoys to the fighters in the Old City and Mount Scopus, and hide guns and ammunition in the sacks of bread. One of the first horses used for the Jewish assault on the Arabs' Old City positions came from Angel's Bakery; its feet were wrapped in old flour sacks so the British wouldn't detect it. The bakery is so well known that it is even depicted in the popular children's book Soosie, The Horse That Saved Shabbat by Tami Lehman-Wilzig, illustrated by notable Israeli artist Menahem Halberstadt (published in the US by Kalaniot Books).
In May 2023, former Labor politician and public security minister Omer Bar-Lev, who was the chairman of the board of directors of Angel Bakery at the time, took part in a protest outside the home of one of the foremost Haredi leaders in Israel, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, which many in the religious community felt was an affront to the rabbi's honor. As a result, religious leaders across Israel called for a boycott of the company until Bar-Lev was fired, with many large canceling their contracts with the firm.
Also in 1965, the brothers introduced new long ovens and kneading machines. That same year, they produced the country's first sliced bread and bread containing soy flour.
To enter the whole wheat bread market, the bakery imported its own wheat-cleaning machine from Hungary; the machine actually had to be Smuggling out since Hungary did not have diplomatic relations with Israel at the time. However, health-food consumers were wary of the first whole-wheat loaves because they were white, not brown. Working with the Health Food Association, Angel's came up with the solution of adding all-natural molasses to the bread to give it a brown color.
Angel's developed the only production line in Israel with the capacity to produce 3,300 loaves of bread per hour. Thirteen other bread production lines in its various plants each yield over 2,000 loaves per hour. One production line in Jerusalem has the capacity to turn out 10,000 in three hours. On each day of the eight-day Hanukkah festival, the Jerusalem plant also fries up 250,000 sufganiyah, the jelly-filled doughnut favored by Israelis at this season.
The bakery's digitally controlled ovens continually adjust temperatures to accommodate the fermenting and baking processes; these ovens can also bake different types of bread at different temperatures on the top and bottom of each oven. Despite the emphasis on innovation and automation, Angel's challah are still braided by hand.
Also in 1984, the company began producing pastries and cakes in a factory in Jerusalem, and beginning in the 1990s it began building and acquiring other bakeries in a move to diversify its products and marketing base. It built a new bakery in Lod in 1995 and purchased the Tuv Tam bakery in Netivot in 1999. Today the company owns and operates five plants:
The company has branched into the baking of breads with special grains and added , reduced-calorie and vitamin-fortified breads, and certified organic food products.
In 2002, it introduced Parbaking pita, challah, rolls, ciabatta, "artisan" breads, and pizza bases, which are Flash freezing and sold to customers or stores that complete the baking process themselves for a fresher product.
In keeping with government regulations, Angel Bakeries also produces several varieties of price-controlled bread (, lechem achid) for the low-income sector.
In the late 1990s, the company opened a chain of cafe/bakeshops in four Jerusalem shopping districts. Besides selling the company's bakery-fresh goods, the Angel Cafe serves salads, sandwiches, pasta dishes, desserts, coffees, teas, and soft drinks.
Angel Bakeries is an approved supplier to the Domino's Pizza chain in Israel, and the sole supplier of to McDonald's restaurants in Israel. It also exports to the United States, United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Denmark. In terms of input, the company uses over 5,000 tons of flour per month.
Another kashrut challenge which the bakery overcame in the early 1950s concerned the ability to produce fresh bread for sale on Sunday mornings after the plant had been closed for Shabbat in accordance with Jewish law. Normally dough takes four to six hours to rise, but the bakery acquired a mixer made by Tweedy of Burnley, England, which could produce dough in only two hours, thus allowing the bakery to bake bread on Saturday night in time for Sunday-morning deliveries. Today Angel Bakeries owns nine such mixers, five of which are used in its Jerusalem plant.
Angel Bakeries operates year-round except for Shabbat, Jewish holiday, and Passover week. In accordance with halakha, it annually sells its stock to a non-Jew before Passover so that it does not own chametz over the holiday.
Angel Bakeries employs 1,800 workers, including Israelis, Palestinians, and Aliyah. Some of its workers are third-generation employees. In its over 80-year history, the bakery has never had a Strike action.
Danny Angel (1920–2009), who worked in the family business from the age of 7 until his death at age 89 was the public face of the company. He was the recipient of many awards, including the Jerusalem Prize, Worthy Citizen of Jerusalem, and Notable Industrialist. He was president of the Manufacturers Association of Israel, the Rotary Club of Israel, and the Variety Club of Israel, which he helped found. He had many friends in the political echelon as well. In recognition of their longtime friendship, Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek always gave Danny Angel an honorary spot at the bottom of his electoral list. In 2008, mayoral candidate Nir Barkat continued the tradition and placed Angel's name at the bottom of his electoral list. Angel's funeral was attended by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, and other government officials.
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