Can business and humanity coexist? Let’s talk about Adam Klęczar
Do you know that there is a story about a Polish entrepreneur that sacrificed his earnings to sustain his employees? Despite the fact that I was a manager too, after listening to that story I am more and more convinced that this world needs more entrepreneurs and fewer managers.
How did I hear about this news?
To be honest, it was the news that reached me. During my bike packing trip from Berlin to Nordkapp, I rode across Poland by bike and I spent one night in a town close to Bydgoszcz.
In this town I met a new friend called Piotr (Peter). Initially he was curious about my bike setup, but then we discovered a lot of things in common between me and him: we shared the same point of view on many topics, we had similar experiences in the past, we are both hard-workers and we also had the same hair-cut at the time when we met.
Our discussion was so extensive that he offered me a place where to sleep so that we could chat a bit more. While mounting my tent in his garden, Piotr went to a supermarket nearby and he bought a couple of beers and some snacks. When he came back, he told me that he was particularly proud of having bought a package of Paluszki Beskidzkie. While opening the bread-sticks package he started telling me about a piece of news that was less than one month old (June 2024). That story exemplifies the pure soul of Polish people, the willingness to work hard and the unity of the Polish nation.
Sadly this news was almost invisible outside of the country. I tried to search for it on different search engines but I wasn’t able to find anything until I searched for the keywords in Polish language: “Paluszki Beskidzkie ogień” (see external references at the end of my article).
What are the Beskidzkie Paluszki?
Beskidzkie Paluszki are snacks made of short, thin bread sticks with small grains of coarse salt on top. Beskidzkie is the name of the brand that produces these snacks, while Paluszki, literally means “sticks”. We have something similar in Italy commercialized under different names and brands.
Who is Adam Klęczar?
Adam Klęczar, born in 1963, a Polish entrepreneur with artistic soul. He learned to play the piano to earn a living starting from the age of 14; from there he had many different experiences until he opened his own first business in the 1980s. In 1993 he founded his current business, beskidzkie.com , the factory that produces the bread-sticks displayed in the side picture. With the care of a good father, Adam grew his business slowly and steadily by purchasing new machineries, employing new people and extending the edges of his trade expanding the distribution network from Poland to the whole Europe and then Russia, Africa, USA and Canada.
What happened?
The Polish factory of Beskidzkie sticks caught fire due to a short circuit during a thunderstorm that happened in the night between 12 and 13 June 2024. No one was injured but both industrial halls that composed the production plant and warehouse were completely destroyed. Despite the intervention of more than 100 firefighters that spent more than 40 hours to extinguish the fire, everything was destroyed.
As a consequence of this event Mr. Klęczar was forced to suspend the production of the famous sticks. The suspension of the production meant an immediate stop also for the revenue of the company and Mr. Klęczar had to bear a lot of costs in order not to fire any of his employees.
Why did that episode become a national case in Poland?
The Polish entrepreneur was not discouraged by that, he communicated that despite the stop of the production, none of the employees would have been fired.
He started immediately the work to restore the factory. Thanks to the support of the local community the first hall of the production plant was fully restored by mid-August 2024 and they restarted a part of the production.
Why did the Beskidzkie Paluszki disappear from all supermarkets?
The information about the decision taken by the entrepreneur was quickly spread throughout the country and the whole of Poland started purchasing the Beskidzkie Paluszki in order to support this good man in this difficult moment.
Listening to this story was really inspiring for me and this should be an example for my country and the whole Europe too. I hope that spreading this news by translating it into English and Italian will inspire also you to build a better world.
Sources
- My Polish friend Piotr
- gazetakrakowska.pl (in Polish language)
- BusinessInsider.com.pl (in Polish language)
- beskidzkie.com
