After increasing in Austria
Path tourism puts pressure on German brewers
Since the reusable deposit in Austria has more than doubled at the beginning of the month, a real deposit tourism has emerged. This is new to an old debate.
On the border with Austria, brewers and trade suffer more from pledge tourism. The background is the increase in the reusable bottle deposit in the neighboring country to 20 cents in beer bottles. Together with the box deposit that has been higher for a long time, this ensures that a box of Leer in Austria, which is acquired in Germany with a deposit of EUR 3.10, brings a pennic equipment of 7 euros.
This is obviously exploited. “In the first few days, the tendency was catastrophic,” says Christian Thiel from the Schönramer brewery in Petting. It is 13 kilometers from here to the border, not 20 to the center of Salzburg. “People try to enrich themselves, at the expense of the brewery and trade. I know a case, someone with a trailer with 50 boxes has driven up during a small beverage market. But he did not accept that.”
Also from the Association of Austria’s breweries, it is said that dealers only have to withdraw the customary household quantities of empties and only boxes that they themselves have in the range. Numbers, for a possible deposit tourism, would not be available, says Berger. “But there are trading partners close to the border who report that a little more is now going on than usual.”
Debate also in Germany
In Germany, too, a debate has been smoldering on a pedical increase for years, which is now being launched a bit. “Basically, we also need small and medium -sized breweries in Germany,” says Thiel. The German Brewer Association sees little chances here at the moment. From there it is said that the increase in Austria can be understood and observed it exactly, but the topic had been checked and found a long time ago and found that an increase would be “very difficult to implement”.
Ultimately, the breweries shy away from three points: that an increase could scare customers that the costs of an estimated several hundred million and possible emptying passes if customers hoard the deposit before a change in order to be able to return it for more money later. These concerns face the problem that bottles and boxes already cost a lot more in procurement than the deposit estimated for them.
dpa
Source: Stern
