The statement that Peter Reichert read out in the Marienplatz room of the Donisl lasted about five minutes and can be summed up in one word: “Excuse me!” A good week after the penalty order from the Munich district court for violations of the food law became known, the landlord of the Donisl and the Bräurosl festival tent defended himself against the various allegations at the Oktoberfest. In the presence of his partner and Donisl manager Franziska Kohlpaintner and the professional communications consultant Peter Jordan, he essentially presented a prepared statement that related to the allegations of the public prosecutor’s office and the scuffle with a security guard at his tent during the past Oktoberfest. At the same time, he reported on a new hygiene concept that is being implemented in both the Donisl and the Bräurosl and meets the highest standards.
“You’ve been reading a lot about me lately,” he addressed the representatives of the Munich press right at the beginning and continued: “I wholeheartedly apologize today!” At the same time, he assured us that the quality in the Bräurosl and Donisl was reliable. “Very, very sorry” that the fight between the young security man and him had happened during the last Oktoberfest. However, it was not read in the press that they shook hands again an hour after the incident and said: “Samma, good again!”
The issue of food hygiene was not that easy to clean up. The district administration department had identified violations in February 2021 and during the Oktoberfest, which were now the basis for investigations by the public prosecutor’s office and ultimately for the penal order. It was said that Reichert “deliberately put food on the market that was unfit for human consumption”. Reichert again vigorously denied this in the press conference without going into detail about the upcoming court proceedings. But he never “deliberately” brought spoiled food into circulation. In both companies, “goods or groceries that were bad or spoiled” were never sold. He, Reichert, is a trained chef himself and only buys the best quality – for this reason the punishment is inappropriate.
Nevertheless, he learned from what happened and drew conclusions. For hygiene in the house he had “started a quality offensive”; The professor of food law at the Technical University of Munich, Alfred Meyer, and Thomas Schmid from the Institute for Food Hygiene have developed a completely new concept for Donisl and Bräurosl that meets the highest standards. “The district administration department looked at it last week and was – I can say so – enthusiastic.”
He now hopes that he will get another chance at the Oktoberfest: “We did the Oktoberfest with a lot of heart and would be very happy to be able to do it again.” 95 percent of his employees from last year wanted to be there again this year: “That’s also a sign of clean work, order and trust.”
This was the end of Reichert’s public statement, and he did not go into details of the legal dispute with reference to the ongoing proceedings.
The public prosecutor’s office subsequently commented on the proceedings again in a press release of its own. She reiterates the accusation against Reichert of “deliberately putting food on the market that is unsuitable for human consumption”. At the same time, however, she also concedes: “The content of the penalty order is not the placing on the market of spoiled food, for example, but serious hygiene deficiencies through to pest infestation.”
Reichert and his lawyers could have inspected the investigations at any time during the proceedings, as required by law, and could have commented. “Although comparatively long comment periods were granted,” said Anne Leiding, spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office, “the accused and his defense made neither exculpatory statements on the matter itself nor on the accused’s income.”