Berlin & Brandenburg: Catering industry in crisis mode: Authority draws its conclusion

Monday 30th November 2020

Berlin / Potsdam (dpa / bb) – The Corona crisis has also plunged many restaurateurs into the crisis in Berlin and Brandenburg. In the first half of the year alone, their sales fell by almost half in Berlin due to the first lockdown in spring, and by more than a third in Brandenburg. Today the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistics Office publishes new figures for the first nine months of this year for both federal states.

After the month-long closings in the first half of the year, many restaurants and pubs were open in the summer, even if they could not serve as many customers as usual due to distance regulations. The increase in the number of infections that followed in autumn and the renewed closure of the industry are not yet reflected in the new data.

The statisticians also provide information on Monday about the first three quarters in retail. The situation there looks a little better than in the catering trade. The grocery trade, which was allowed to continue opening its shops in the spring, even recorded sales increases in Berlin in the first six months, as the statistics office announced at the time. The so-called non-food trade was able to largely compensate for its sales losses, primarily through online sales.