Penalty levied for wasting food in Germany
“When I arrived at Hamburg, my colleagues who work in Hamburg arranged a welcome party for me in a restaurant. As we walked into the restaurant, we noticed that a lot of tables were empty. There was a table where a young couple was having their meal. There were only two dishes and two cans of beer on the table. I wondered if such a simple meal could be romantic, and whether the girl will leave this stingy guy.
There were a few old ladies at another table. When a dish is served, the waiter would distribute the food for them and they would finish every bit of the food on their plates. We did not pay much attention to them, as we were looking forward to the dishes we ordered. As we were hungry, our local colleague ordered more food for us.
As the restaurant was quiet, the food came quite fast. Since there were other activities arranged for us, we did not spend much time dining nor did we consume the entire food that we had ordered. When we left, there was still about one third of the unconsumed food left on the table.
When we were about to leave the restaurant, we heard someone calling us. We noticed that the old ladies in the restaurant were talking about us to the restaurant owner. When they spoke to us in English, we understood that they were unhappy about us wasting so much food. We immediately felt that they were really being too busybodies.
‘We have paid for the food that we had ordered, it is none of your business how much food we left behind,’ my colleague told the old ladies.
The old ladies were furious. One of them immediately took her hand phone out and made a call to someone. Within a few minutes, a man in uniform claimed to be an officer from the Social Security Organization arrived. Upon knowing what the dispute was, he issued us a 50 euro fine. We kept quiet. My local colleague took out and gave him a 50 euro note and repeatedly apologized to the officer.
The officer told us in a stern voice, ‘Order what you can consume, the money is yours, but resources belong to the society. There are many others in the world, who are facing shortage of resources. You have no right to waste the nation’s resources.’
Our face turned red. We all agreed with him in our hearts. The mindset of people of this rich country put all of us to shame. We really need to reflect on this. My colleague took copies of the fine ticket and gave a copy to each of us as a souvenir. This will always remind us that we shall never be wasteful.”
