No matter if baker, butcher or hairdresser - there is currently paperwork everywhere. Even with the simple purchase of pretzels, a receipt has to be printed out since the beginning of the year. The head of the bakery guild, Werner Nau, is fighting against it - with top-class support.
Fürstenfeldbruck - For some bakers, the receipt queue runs straight from the printer into the trash. In Moosinning (Erding district), a baker had fun and glued candy-based receipts to his donuts. What is certain is that a new health insurance regulation came into force on January 1st. For every small purchase, a receipt must now be printed out. Fürstenfeldbruck's master baker's master, Werner Nau, does not participate.
"I kept printing out a receipt only when requested by the customer," says Nau. He does not have to fear a fine. It could just be that it is therefore checked more often by the tax office.
Nau goes one step further. The master baker, who himself has four branches in the district (and one in Geltendorf), has now teamed up with the member of the state parliament Benjamin Miskowitsch (CSU) and the member of the Bundestag Katrin Staffler (CSU). Together they want to enforce a trivial limit for receipts.
"If you only had to issue a receipt from a purchase value of five to ten euros, we would be helped a lot," says Nau. On average, customers spend between three and five euros in their shops.
In addition, every customer can see his purchase and the amount on the till display anyway. A kind of digital receipt. This is already common in other EU countries. There, customers can simply photograph the displays with their cell phones or receive the receipt by email.
Engelbert Jais, senior master of the Fürstenfeldbruck butchers' guild, printed out the receipt for every purchase even before the new regulation was introduced. "Customers usually get it straight into the bag," explains Jais. "The construction worker who just quickly gets a liver cheese roll still just leaves him lying there."
However, what annoys the master butcher more is the expensive retrofitting of the cash registers with a technical safety device (TSE). This means that every booking step is recorded at the respective cash register. A controller can thus call up the data individually on each device. This means that a receipt requirement is unnecessary anyway, says Jais.
The companies have until September to carry out the changeover. In the case of Engelbert Jais, this means converting 17 cash registers. “It costs me around 600 euros per till. With smaller companies, the air is already thin at the price. ”
For Engelbert Jais, the new regulation is a threat to the existence of the entire industry. More and more regulations and creeping cost increases would keep the youngsters from learning the craft, said the senior master.
Twelve years ago there were 24 butchers in the Brucker district, now there are only 17. "Soon there will be no more diversity, but only industrially manufactured products."
This is what a manufacturer of thermal paper says
The GeBE company in Germering builds thermal printers for industry and is therefore particularly familiar with the thermal printing process. Development manager Klaus Baldig explains the most important facts. Receipts made of thermal paper are used in almost every shop. They are inexpensive - no ink or toner is required - and space-saving. The devices rarely need to be serviced. In thermal printing, the image is created on a coated paper using heat and pressure. One ingredient of the coating has been particularly discredited and has been banned since the beginning of the year: bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is suspected of promoting diabetes, obesity and infertility. The substitute product Bisphenol S is now frequently used. How this substance affects health has not yet been adequately investigated. In both cases, the Federal Environment Agency recommends that the notes be disposed of in normal residual waste. Only thermal paper that completely dispenses with such additives can be recycled. The more environmentally friendly paper is currently a third more expensive than conventional paper. The advantage, however, is that the thermal printer does not have to be converted. If it were up to Baldig, there should be a minimum price limit from which a receipt must be printed. That would help the environment the most.