As of: March 13, 2024, 10:12 a.m
By: Holger Weber-Stoppacher
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After 40 years it's over: the Jost butcher shop in the Main-Kinzig district is closing - because the high turnover brings with it too much bureaucracy.
Bruchköbel – The Ostheim butcher Volker Jost wants to close his branch in Bruchköbel-Roßdorf (Main-Kinzig district) after 40 years.
The reason: It makes too much sales there and would now have to apply for EU approval.
He doesn't want that.
“I’m fed up,” he says.
Friday morning, 10.30 a.m. in Roßdorf.
It's buzzing again in the Jost butcher's shop.
Some customers are waiting outside on the sidewalk for the small sales room to become empty so they can place their order.
Martina Wiesner serves behind the counter.
Just like almost always in the past 40 years.
But the days are numbered.
Ostheim master butcher Volker Jost does not want to reopen his Roßdorf branch after Easter.
Then it's over at Hanauer Straße.
Forever.
Shops are usually closed because they don't bring in enough sales.
It sounds paradoxical, but in Roßdorf the opposite is the case.
Jost delivers so many products there from his headquarters in Ostheim that he would have to apply for so-called EU approval in the future.
However, that is out of the question for him.
This would involve even more bureaucratic effort.
“We’re not taking part in this anymore.
“We won’t do that to ourselves,” he says.
And he looks more sad than angry.
It is with a heavy heart that they close the branch: Andrea Wiesner with her mother Margot and Volker Jost on Hanauer Landstrasse.
They took over the shop 40 years ago.
© Patrick Scheiber
Too much bureaucracy forces butchers to close despite high sales
The increasing bureaucratization of his profession is giving him a hard time.
And not just him.
According to a current survey of 100 member companies of the Hessian Butchers' Association, it is the increasing bureaucratization that is causing the craftsmen the most problems.
A close second is the shortage of skilled workers in the industry.
This will also be a problem for the Josts in the near future; most of their employees are already over 60.
“Nobody wants to be a butcher anymore,” says Jost, who is also a member of the local guild’s journeyman examination committee.
The number of trainees in the guild has been declining for years.
The 62-year-old puts a piece of paper printed on both sides on the table.
The title reads: “Information sheet for food business operators on the approval process for food establishments in the EU.” There is a long list of evidence that must be provided for the required approval.
“To give just one simple example,” he says: “So far we have had to prove that thermometers are present in all places where food is stored.
Now they are also asking us to provide additional evidence that these are properly calibrated.”
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Jost also now has to put up a sign in the sales room asking customers to only eat minced meat or sliced meat when it is fully cooked.
The veterinary office asked him whether he could prove that customers adhere to it.
Jost shakes his head: “I lost faith then.
Should I run after people and look into the pots now?”
Always well stocked: This is how regular customers know the display at the Jost butcher.
© -
The family has been running a butcher shop in the Main-Kinzig district for six generations
The family thought about it for a long time and then came to the joint decision to close the branch in Roßdorf, even though it wasn't an easy decision.
The family is a real butcher dynasty in Ostheim.
At 85 years old, mother Margot still works in the store every day.
Volker Jost and his two sisters Hella Bähr-Jost and Martina Wiesner already form the sixth generation.
Their partners also work in the company.
When the family took over the store in Roßdorf in 1984, you had to go up a flight of stairs in the back yard to the second floor to get to the store.
“You couldn’t expect that from the customers, so we turned the old crawl space on the ground floor into a sales room,” remembers Volker Jost.
Behind the shop there is only a small kitchen and a preparation room.
The products have always been brought ready-made from Ostheim.
“I’ve cried a lot recently,” says Martina Wiesner.
She knows almost all of her customers by name.
Many people can't believe that this will soon be over, she says.
The shop was something like her baby; she worked here for all 40 years, for the past 24 years together with her colleague Kerstin Bildhäuser.
She has already found another job and left at the beginning of the month.
For Martina Wiesner, things continue in the main building in Ostheim.
There are fewer shopping opportunities for older people in Roßdorf
The closure is sad news, especially for many older people in Roßdorf.
The offers in the village are becoming fewer.
At the beginning of the year, the Nahkauf opposite was closed.
Above all, Volker Jost doesn't want to let his older, regular customers down.
The warm lunch that he delivers to Roßdorf five days a week will continue to be available.
He is also thinking about a delivery service.
He plans to bring customers their orders to their front doors twice a week.
After all, there are fewer and fewer butchers in the region, he says, and lists a number of places where there are no longer any butchers, including a town like Langenselbold.
“Ending the family tradition after 180 years”
According to Martin Fuchs, general manager of the German Butchers' Association, the number of butchers is falling by three percent every year.
There is also increasing concentration in the industry because many small and medium-sized family businesses are being taken over by the larger companies.
Often no successor is found.
This is also a problem with the Josts.
Volker Jost doesn't want to expect his son Christoph, who lives in southern Germany and is also a trained butcher, to take over the business one day.
“So I'm probably the one who will have to end the family tradition at some point after 180 years,” says Volker Jost, sounding very sad.
(
By Holger Weber-Stoppacher)
The concrete pump manufacturer Putzmeister from the Main-Kinzig district also recently announced that it would be closing the location.
However, his jobs will be relocated to Turkey.