Christian Glas from the butcher shop Glas in Dachau closed his operations in Mittermayerstraße at the end of the year. Ultimately, the deciding factor were personal reasons that he does not want to talk about, he said in response to a SZ request in October last year when he announced the closure of the butcher’s shop. For a long time it was not clear whether someone would continue the business.
Now Michael Walk, master butcher and managing director of Boneberger GmbH based in Schongau, has decided to take over the butcher’s shop in Dachau. Walk says that two months ago he received a request to take over the butcher shop Glas, but had refused because of insufficient capacity: “But after many Dachau customers called us and asked us to take over the butcher shop, we finally met changed, “said Walk.
“We are a dying race. The butcher’s trade is just not hip”
Werner Braun, head master of the Dachau-Freising butcher’s guild and deputy state master of the butchers’ association of Bavaria, is happy that the Dachau butcher’s shop will continue to exist and sees the Boneberger butcher’s shop as an “asset to the city of Dachau”. In addition, the high density of butchers of around 50 businesses in the Freising-Dachau guild is retained, for which “the whole of Bavaria envies us,” says Werner Braun.
On Monday, January 10th, Michael Walk will start operations in Mittermayerstraße, opening its 24th branch in the greater Munich area. All employees of the former Glas butcher will be taken over and the premises will remain unchanged for the time being due to delivery bottlenecks. Walk plans to remodel the store from Easter and add a large snack area.
The fact that the butcher’s shop on Mittermayerstraße will be preserved is anything but a matter of course. The industry is struggling to survive. “We’re a dying race. The butcher’s trade is just not hip,” says Braun. Many family businesses are being forced to close because the offspring do not want to continue running the butcher’s shop, a “sad development,” he says. There is a lack of butchers, even though Braun notices that customers in the Dachau district have a high level of acceptance and willingness to buy: “The butchers are really buzzing.”
In addition to an image problem for the butcher’s trade, working hours also make the job description less attractive. Production begins in the early hours of the morning, “but no later than four o’clock,” explains Braun. The general shortage of staff that prevails in the industry would have meant the end for Dachau butcher’s shop Glas. Braun very much regrets that. Glas has “done a great job and built a great company”.
Walk himself is not affected by the youth problems. His daughter Katharina Walk works as a sales manager in the company. And the general shortage of staff would sometimes compensate for “housewives as lateral entrants with an affinity for cooking and housekeeping” in his companies, says Walk.
“We want to show that we are not a craft that only kills critters”
Braun and Walk agree that the craft must be made more attractive in order to survive in the future. Braun is therefore launching campaigns together with the Bavarian Butchers’ Association aimed at getting young people interested in the butcher’s trade. For example, he regularly offers veal sausage seminars. And this would bear fruit, says Braun happily. He is optimistic: “We don’t want to throw the gun in the grain, we want to show that we are not a craft that only kills critters, but a craft that is fun.”
But it is not just the lack of young talent that troubles butchers. Braun also sees competition from supermarkets and discounters, who offer meat and sausage at low prices, as a major hurdle that local butchers have to overcome. Meat should be consumed more consciously: Braun advocates less meat consumption, but higher quality meat.
Walk also notices that the behavior of consumers is changing and adapts the range in its butchers according to customer requirements. Together with his son, he wants to prepare his butcher shops for the trend towards meat-free products. “So that the customer can also buy something for his vegetarian daughter from us,” explains Walk. In about four weeks, father and son are planning to offer vegan and vegetarian alternatives – also in Dachau. Walk emphasizes that these are expressly not about commercially available meat substitutes. He also wants to forego soy because “the domestic soy is not yet available in large quantities and we do not want to use foreign soy,” explains Walk. Rather, he wants to use local vegetables, vegetable protein and rapeseed oil for the meat-free products.