In Neubruck near Scheibbs there is a lot of activity at 6 a.m.: The production of the Reschinsky confectionery is not for diabetics. Punch donuts and foam tip are made and in a few hours they will be sold at the Kollmitzberger Kirtag (district of Amstetten). Above all, the foam rolls are stacked up – they are the ultimate pastry.
Senior boss Heribert Reschinsky doesn’t want to know about any trade secrets in the recipe: “They just have to be fresh and we’ll take care of that.” 12,000 pieces leave the bakery this Saturday, some in the direction of Scheibbs to the parent company cafe, but mostly to Kollmitzberg. The oldest Kirtag in Austria takes place there, Kollmitzberg has been inviting visitors to the Kirtag for around 500 years.
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“Lower Austria today”, September 24, 2022
Even as children at the Kirtag
The Scheibbser confectioners are there with seven stands. This also requires a lot of staff. Master confectioner and managing director Florian Reschinsky is always on the go with his mother Anita, but everyone helps out in the business, he says: “It’s a big family. Some come straight from the bakery, others always mark the Kirtag dates in the calendar, it works extremely well.”
Photo series with 4 pictures
Kirtagfahrer is a profession for early risers. This also applies to the children, such as today’s senior boss Heribert and his brother, as their mother Gertrude Reschinsky explains. In the early 1960s, the 88-year-old began to run the fair business more intensively, the children had to come along in the morning: “I often made a bed for them out of clothes. The boys slept under the wagon while father and mother sold above.”
“Not a night that I don’t dream of the Kirtag”
The pastry shop has been around for 134 years, the first Reschinsky wagons were already on the road in the interwar period, but it was Gertrude Reschinsky who decisively expanded the business. Often against resistance from the competition, she was even threatened. After all, it was about the best place: “And it’s always in the middle. Not at the beginning and not at the end of the Kirtag. And preferably at an inn, people went in and out there.” To this day, she has not let go of the Kirtag: “There is almost no night that I don’t dream of the Kirtag.”
In Lower Austria and other federal states
Young entrepreneur Florian Reschinsky sees a future for this industry: “We can set up up to ten stands. My uncle in Wieselburg – who has his own shop but also drives with our products – also gets six or seven. In addition to the fairs in Lower Austria, we are also on the road in Styria, in Vienna at the Christmas markets. My uncle is in Salzburg today at Rupertikirtag.”
The uncle is also at many trade fairs – from the reptile fair to the vintage car show, foam rolls are sold. When there were no major events at the peak of the pandemic, the Reschinskys set up their cars and stalls at blood donation sites. “It also worked,” says Florian Reschinsky. But the meager pandemic years should be over, business is now back to full swing.