▶ “Salam aleikum brother, make a doner kebab for two or three euros.”
▶ “Please, Herr Scholz, lower the kebab prices. I pay nine euros for a doner kebab – and it’s not even organic.”
▶ “As a student, it is almost impossible to get a doner kebab every day. That’s why I’m asking you to introduce the kebab price brake.”
These are just three of the numerous messages received by the federal government’s official Instagram account on the subject of “Why is the doner kebab so expensive?”.
The social media team of Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and his cabinet has now touched this hot iron or this hot rotisserie and made a statement about the price explosion.
Olaf Scholz, then Federal Labor Minister, visited a doner kebab factory in Hamburg in 2008
We remember: In April 2022, BILD wrote for the first time that a kebab earthquake shook Germany. Prices had risen dramatically nationwide.
Gürsel Ülber, the chairman of the board of the association of Turkish doner kebab manufacturers in Europe, said at the time: “A doner kebab should actually cost 7.30 euros.” Only about six months later, BILD reported on one Imbiss from Frankfurt am Main, which now charges ten euros for its meat and garlic combo.
Price drivers then as now: additional costs for food and energy as a result of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. The federal government also knows this, and in its Instagram post it also refers to increased shop rents, delivery costs and wages.
When asked “What are politicians doing?”, the traffic light’s social media team responded as one would expect from top politicians: with self-praise. “The federal government is also helping small companies with the energy price brakes. Like the kebab shop.” And: “The relief packages support you all.”
When it comes to realpolitik, the statement is far less catchy: “Will the kebab be cheaper as a result? It’s not yet possible to say for sure. ”And an emoji in the form of a glass ball.
The Instagram users are only moderately enthusiastic about the answers from Scholz and Co. A user writes: “You did not answer the question.” And a user is angry: “What is this? The official Instagram account of the federal government or ‘The show with the mouse’? What a kid thing.”
