In the past few weeks, the number of customers who want to buy everyday goods at low prices in their local social markets has skyrocketed. The market managers of the Rotkreuz markets in Perg and Hagenberg and the social market Arcade in Freistadt unanimously report that customer frequency is about twice as high as before the turn of the year. “On Thursday we had around 100 customers instead of the usual 50. That’s the case every time we are open,” says Doris Truffner from the Arcade Freistadt social market. On the one hand, there is a new group of buyers with the refugees from the Ukraine, but on the other hand, the rise in prices in the local supermarkets is now having an impact: “Many customers who have not come to us so often in the past few months are now shopping regularly again because their disposable income can no longer keep up with the increased prices,” says Inge Himmelbauer from the Rotkreuz market in Hagenberg, which celebrated its tenth anniversary on Friday. “Recently, half an hour before unlocking, people were standing in front of the door in the pouring rain, waiting,” says Brigitte Wolf, a colleague in the store’s management department.
A glance at the active authorization cards given to people below a set income limit (single-person household: 1,200 euros; two-person household: 1,700 euros) shows how much the offer of the social markets is needed. For the Red Cross stores in Hagenberg and Unterweißenbach, for example, these have increased from 180 to 250 cards. The result of this increase in customers: the stocks of the markets with discounted goods are visibly tending. Donations in kind – especially of long-life milk, oil and flour, but also diapers – are therefore more necessary than they have been for a long time.
In order to secure this supply, the social markets are also dependent on external help. At the Rotkreuz market in Perg, for example, this help comes from the Kiwanis Club Mühlviertel. “We see that families with children in particular are suffering greatly from the current situation. That is why we will be helping the Red Cross market with the upcoming collection campaigns,” says the club’s president, Karl Fröschl. This also applies to the proceeds from club events such as the charity duck race on June 18 in Schwertberg.
Source: Nachrichten
