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The crisis has landed on German workers’ lunches. According to the German Hotel and Restaurant Association, reports the Süddeutsche Zeitung, staff canteens are the eating establishments that have been hardest hit by belt-tightening in the labour force. Traditionally considered the best off in the catering sector, their turnover dropped 6.2% in 2009 on the year before, coming to €5.2 billion. The reason is that many companies have decided to stop subsidising staff meals as part of their cost-cutting efforts amid the current recession, and their employees are changing their eating habits. As a result, the more expensive “organic” and “international cuisine” sections in company cafeterias are no longer all the rage. Already reputed the most penny-pinching nation in Europe when it comes to food, “Germans are now foregoing hot meals in favour of a throwback to a less affluent age: the home-made sandwich,” observes the Munich daily.
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