Austria
Shitstorm because of cheap schnitzel – furniture store promises massive changes
Schnitzel, a classic of Austrian and German cuisine
© Barish Baur / Getty Images
In the in-house restaurants of the furniture chain XXXLutz there were XXL schnitzel at a bargain price – but without specifying where the cheap meat came from. A no-go for many customers.
Most of us probably remember the time, in the early 2000s, when everything had to be as cheap as possible and as big as possible. XXL restaurants sprung up everywhere where happy visitors tried, rarely successfully, to devour absurdly gigantic burgers, steaks or schnitzels. Thomas “Jumbo” Schreiner, who liked to test such meals, became a cult figure on television. And at that time, furniture stores and hardware stores also began to offer XXL schnitzel in their in-house “restaurants”. Many customers liked that.
But times have changed. The much too large portions from back then seem decadent today, the low prices make people doubt the quality of the ingredients used. A lot helps a lot? Apparently not anymore. A furniture store had to find out that – to be fair, it has to be acknowledged – has the “XXL” in its name: XXXLutz.
Quality is more important to many than quantity
In Austria, the furniture chain was exposed to a real shitstorm when a large schnitzel was offered in the restaurants there for a meager 2.99 euros. And the anger came from two sides: the Austrian farmers grumbled that such cheap meat could never be regional and must therefore have been bought at competitive prices from abroad and probably from dubious production. On the other hand, animal rights activists were outraged, because this offer would make it clear how little people value high-quality meat and that animal suffering and torture are accepted for a good price.
After all, nine million customers visit the Austrian XXXLutz restaurants every year, making up a significant part of the income. And apparently you don’t want to scare off this clientele – because instead of a new competitive price for the schnitzel, the furniture store is now making a promise: It only wants to buy the pork it offers in Austria in Austria. And pork makes up 80 percent of the culinary offerings at the furniture giant.
Customers attach more importance to product origin
The price of schnitzel rose by 60 cents as a result of the changeover. The quality is probably not particularly good: if you want to allow pigs from Austria less animal suffering, you would have to pay about two euros more, according to the “Standard”.
In Austria, a heated discussion about the origin of ingredients is also raging away from the furniture store restaurants: while farmers, animal rights activists and many customers are demanding stricter and clearer indication of the origin of meat, eggs or dairy products, restaurateurs and innkeepers are opposed to it. It is said that this would bring additional costs and more bureaucracy to the industry, which was already shaken by Corona.
The question is how important the quality of the products really is to customers in the end – because they decide which restaurants they will visit in the future and which not.
Source: “The standard”