Snack bars are angry: plastic containers are a different story

If you regularly have sushi or burgers delivered to your home, you surely haven’t missed the additional charges for disposable plastic packaging. It’s a major change that is being felt not only by consumers, but also keenly by business owners. Snack bar owners, for example. Contrary to what is being claimed in the media, they don’t make a single cent from it.

Since 1 July 2023, we have been paying a surcharge for disposable plastic packaging. These are so-called SUP items: Single Use Plastics. Business owners, including snack bar owners, are free to determine the amount of the surcharge. The mandatory surcharge is between 1 and 10 cents. You can always find the exact amount on the receipt.

Snack bars are angry

But the fact that business owners are allowed to set the price themselves does not mean that they make a profit, as has been speculated in various media, says the Vereniging Professionele Frituurders (ProFri). They consider the claim misleading because the vast majority of cafeterias do not make a single cent from it, while other associated costs are being overlooked.

Here’s the story with those plastic containers

The total prices at snack bars often have not changed, but owners do have to deal with a waste-disposal contribution. The contribution they now charge barely offsets the increased cost of the packaging, which many business owners had not yet included in their prices at all. “So there is no question of extra profit,” says ProFri director Frans van Rooij.

Everything is more expensive, including fries

Van Rooij does acknowledge that the snack bar industry has seen general price increases in recent years. “But that’s no surprise. The aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, rising purchasing costs, substantial rent increases being implemented, personnel costs rising by tens of percentage points, and, last but not least, energy costs… It all adds up. According to recent research by accountants, 15 percent of the hospitality industry in our country is on shaky ground. There’s a reason for that, of course.”

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