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Germans love goose sauce.
“Almost everyone orders the extra portion,” says Jeroen Maes.
Actually it should have been a quiet Advent season for him and his employees - one that was far too quiet.
The “Halber Mond” hotel and restaurant that Maes runs in Heppenheim, Hesse, has been closed since the beginning of November.
Lockdown.
For the second time this year.
Ironically, in Christmas business.
But in the kitchen of the “Half Moon” people work in shifts.
"We have been working around the clock since Thursday," says the boss.
They even bought extra steamers to get all the geese ready on time.
Hotel director Maes has entered the mail order business - with roasted geese.
"Gans2Go" is the name of his service, which is supplied from the "Halben Mondes" kitchen to Christmas tables throughout Germany.
You could still order until the fourth Advent and should still get the all-round carefree package in time for Christmas Eve: one kilo of red cabbage, 150 grams of glazed chestnuts, 500 grams of potato dumplings, half a liter of sauce - and of course a 5.2 kilo roast goose .
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Everything is pre-cooked and vacuum-packed so that you only have to warm up the dishes and bake the goose in the oven.
The whole thing is available for 129 euros and is enough for four people.
If you want to be on the safe side, you can get a portion of extra sauce for 7.50 euros.
The restaurant will send almost 1,000 geese this year - twice as many as in 2019.
Geese do not have a long life in 2020 either
The Germans not only love sauce, they also do not let their traditions be taken away for the festival in the pandemic year.
Anyone who has seen thousands of happy geese waddling around in sanctuaries in the next year in the face of closed restaurants, contact restrictions and fear of viruses will be disappointed.
The roast comes on the table just like the sparkling wine will be under the tree to toast.
The bottles are by no means gathering dust on the shelves this year either.
If relatives can't come to visit and everything has to be a little smaller this year, then it should at least be right on the plate and in the glass.
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For three quarters of German citizens, according to a study by pollsters from YouGov, “good food and drink” is the focus on the holidays.
Even if the client of the survey, the sparkling wine manufacturer Henkell Freixenet, is not likely to be completely impartial on the subject, the statements coincide with the figures that are also reported in the Corona year.
In any case, the sparkling wine industry reports good business.
And: It is increasingly expensive to buy, for example wine and champagne or even Prosecco and Crémant.
"Consumers treat themselves to something," says Andreas Brokemper, spokesman for the management of Henkell Freixenet.
It was different in the past few years.
First of all, the sparkling wine had to be cheap.
The kilo of goose for 14.60 euros
And when it comes to roasting, the trend this year is towards luxury.
Not only "Gans2Go" relies on the more expensive geese from Germany.
Despite the many unusual Martin goose meals in November, domestic poultry is so popular this year that prices have even increased: The price per kilo for German geese rose in 2020 from 14.14 euros to 14.60 euros.
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"The 4,700 tons of geese from German production will find buyers again this year," says expert Margit Beck from the industry service "Marktinfo Eier und Geflügel".
Despite the restaurants that have closed due to Corona and cannot offer goose food.
However, this is not only due to private demand, which makes up for part of the lack of catering business.
"In Hungary, the hatching rate fell by around 40 percent this year," says Beck.
Most of the more than 29,000 tons of goose meat consumed in Germany each year comes from other Eastern European countries.
The price difference is clear, for frozen geese from abroad you only had to pay 3.54 euros per kilo in 2019, not even a quarter of the price of German fresh geese.
However, some of the cheap foreign frozen goods come from farms with questionable keeping conditions, animals are stuffed or plucked alive.
Unfortunately, even closed restaurants don't mean that these geese can't end up on a table at some point.
"It may well be that frozen geese, which will not be sold this year due to the lower demand from the catering industry, will not be sold until 2021," says expert Beck.
You could then lie in the freezer for a long time, because geese are an absolute seasonal business: the roast goose that is not eaten in November or December is therefore not on the plate in July or August.
Christmas is more important than New Year's Eve
The sparkling wine industry could hardly afford Germans to abstain in December either.
Henkell Freixenet makes around 15 percent of its sales of a good billion euros in the last month of the year.
Viewed across the entire industry, it should be around 20 percent, reports the Association of German Sparkling Wine Cellars.
Christmas is even more important than New Year's Eve.
The Sundays in Advent should not be underestimated either.
New Year's Eve is then the icing on the cake at the end of the year.
The industry is not afraid that this icing on the cake could turn out to be smaller in the exceptional year 2020.
According to the YouGov survey, at least the majority of Germans are planning to toast the New Year despite or perhaps because of Corona.
And 43 percent of those surveyed want to use sparkling wine, eight percent each with Prosecco or champagne, two percent with cava and nine percent with non-alcoholic sparkling wine.
You will also take time to toast in “Half Moon” and take a deep breath at the turn of the year, when the last roast goose has been shipped.
But Maes is now convinced of the potential of the gastro mail order business.
Therefore, he will continue in January - not with geese, but with cheese fondue.
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Actually a specialty of the house every winter.
Before the lockdown decision came, he had already bought cheese for 5000 euros.
It's one more product that you can't get rid of in spring.
That is why he now also sends parcels with cheese, bread and a fondue machine.
You should simply send the device back after you have eaten - if you like, it is also not washed.
It's not all bad in this pandemic year.
This text is from WELT AM SONNTAG. We will be happy to deliver them to your home on a regular basis.
Source: Welt am Sonntag