“Zwergerlkoch” Martin Albrecht tells in an interview how everything has changed and what that means for his company.
Oderding - Until three weeks ago, Martin and Lena Albrecht had an all-round flourishing company with 55 employees in Oderding. As a “dwarf chef”, they have supplied lunch to around 150 schools and kindergartens throughout the district and in the neighboring counties. Now everything is different, as Martin Albrecht reports in an interview with the Heimatzeitung.
Did you have to throw away all the food you ordered when the schools and kindergartens were closed?
No, luckily not. We had already ordered everything and had some of it delivered. However, the suppliers all responded very graciously and we were able to return the non-durable food and cancel orders that had already been placed. However, the situation is difficult for us.
Because you lost your business foundation?
I agree. We are a company with 55 employees who supply around 150 kindergartens and schools with fresh food. From one day to the next, this was no longer possible, as one hundred percent of the customer base was no longer there. This extent was previously inconceivable ...
Loans are needed for running costs
Politicians have given financial support, is that useful?
Without sounding ungrateful now: With our number of employees, we receive 15,000 euros in emergency aid from the Bavarian aid program. In view of the loss of sales of around 300,000 euros per month and the running costs, these are of little importance. We wanted to start growing in April. We - and the bank - must now completely re-evaluate that. We will now have to draw on loans to cover ongoing costs. Hopefully these will be available quickly. We have already applied for loans. We will of course have a large mountain of debt in front of us when operations start up again.
Are the requests complicated?
It wasn't easy. Fortunately, we have a helpful bank. Fortunately, due to the planned expansion, we already had a business plan that we had to fill in again with the numbers. We have been sitting there for a few days. Once the applications have been submitted to the bank and all evidence has been provided, it is checked whether we are creditworthy. Only then will it be paid out. So far, we have received neither emergency aid nor loan payments.
What about your employees at the moment?
Our employees are all on short-time work. If we had to pay wages now, we would be done quickly. Fortunately, they are fully behind us and understand the decision. We know that this is not a matter of course and I hope that at some point we will be able to show it to them. I hope for our people that they can manage the short-time allowance.
Do you think that you will cook for schools and kindergartens again after the Easter holidays?
Probably not, even if we hope so. Many heads and rectors of the institutions and schools suspect that the closing time goes beyond what was previously announced.
"Healthy business" before the coronavirus crisis
How long do you expect?
I expect that we will probably not be open all the time for the next twelve months. As long as there is no vaccine against the corona virus, we fear that everything will be shut down again and again.
Can you hold it out?
Basically, we are optimistic. The decisive factor is the duration of the closure for us. Fortunately, we were a healthy company before the Corona crisis came, otherwise it would look bad for us. It would also look bad for us if we had already started the new building that we are currently planning. Then it would have hit us much worse. With this project, we now have to wait until everything is stable again.
Have you already learned lessons from this situation?
We will try to position ourselves more broadly so that in the future we will not only be dependent on children going to schools and kindergartens. There are many mind games. We have been asked many times about single-portion deliveries. If the children do not come to kindergartens and schools, we come to their homes ... Especially in the last few days we have received calls from parents who work in the home office, who have children at home and would be happy about such an offer . We have to consider how and if that is feasible. And there are also seniors and companies. Everyone needs a good meal - especially in difficult times like this. On the other hand, it has been an advantage so far to only cook for children and to focus entirely on this special target group.
Read also: Necessity makes you inventive: Many businesses and companies in the district make use of the Internet and deliver their goods to the house after ordering by email or telephone.
Due to the Corona crisis, all trips will be canceled up to and including the end of April. This results in considerable losses for the travel agencies and yet they have so much work that they are sometimes also at work for their customers at night.
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