The Offenbach weekly market is in crisis – this time really! Even if those involved have already proclaimed the imminent death of the most beautiful weekly market in Rhein-Main many times, it remained untouched as an apparently unshakable size. But the current development raises doubts about this stability.
Offenbach – According to Petra Heckelmann, head of the Offenbacher Marktbeschicker association, and her colleagues Julia Jung (Jung family gardening) and Ulrike Lang (Lang gardening), the weekly market has been shaken up over the past year. Gaps are left in the usual jigsaw puzzle of stands on Wilhelmsplatz.
“It no longer has anything to do with the weather or the season,” Heckelmann sounds the alarm. “More and more traders are simply giving up.” Last year, Heckelmann lost Kueppel, Blumen König and the Birkenbach butcher, who briefly succeeded the Schneider butcher’s shop, a veteran of Offenbach’s weekly market.
“The real reason for many is that it no longer pays off”
The organic vegetable farmer has also disappeared. “It wasn’t worth it for him anymore,” says Heckelmann. “Now he sells organic boxes and earns more with it.”
The traditional vegetable nursery Lang has reduced its business and also sells in its own farm shop. “It’s getting more and more difficult to handle all this when the turnover is no longer right at the end,” Ulrike Lang explains the step.
Ever larger gaps remain in the otherwise dense market, which Heckelmann finds increasingly difficult to fill, no matter how good the planning. The traders are quite inventive when they stay away. Sometimes it is the rainy weather, sometimes the cold temperatures. There are also frequent vacations. “The feeders do feel the need to excuse their absence,” says Heckelmann. “But ultimately you have to realize that the real reason for many is that it no longer pays off.”
The reasons for this are diverse. On the one hand, there are the increased production costs caused by the energy crisis, says Julia Jung from the family nursery of the same name. In addition, for dealers, some of whom traveled from far away, there were high fuel prices, says Heckelmann. “In the end, many people are now paying more,” makes Jung unequivocally clear. For their vegetable stand, for example, Tuesday can only be seen as customer care. “We often go home without winning.”
This is apparently also due to the decreasing willingness of customers to buy. The weekly market teems with visitors on Fridays and especially Saturdays, who sometimes crowd together during rush hour between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and literally besiege the surrounding coffee and food stands. “Only they buy nothing or very little,” complains Heckelmann.
And that although the goods in the supermarket are currently often more expensive than those at the weekly market. “We dealers are now just decoration for the coffee drinkers.” This clientele visits the market because of its flair. “These people go home at the end of the day with a bag of lettuce and three lattes in their stomachs.”
Unlike Heckelmann, Jung sees an opportunity in the many people who visit the market as a “social event” and are only interested in the gastronomic offer. “Perhaps we have to offer more in this direction on the market in order to keep these people and thus strengthen the appeal of the market beyond the borders of Offenbach again.” Because they have “definitely lost due to the many construction sites in recent years”, Jung is convinced. “Many loyal customers from far away didn’t come back after they couldn’t get through in Offenbach.”
“People don’t want to tow”
Also, many of the customers who do their actual weekly shopping at the weekly market have apparently been missing for some time. Petra Heckelmann is certain that she identified a trigger for this. “People don’t want to drag.”
She is counting on the fact that the situation will ease up a bit in the course of completing the marketplace. “We currently have nothing left but to wait and hope that things will pick up again.” (Christian Reinartz)
