bankruptcy

ANPPreparations for Christmas dinner in restaurant

NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 16:06

• Roeland Müller

  Economics Reporter

• Roeland Müller

  Economics Reporter

Dutch people are going out to eat again, including this Christmas. Yet many restaurants have barely recovered from the corona pandemic, according to research by ABN Amro. High costs of food and personnel reduce profits. More than half of catering entrepreneurs are struggling with tax debt.

A recognizable image for Eric Toren, owner of Bougainville, the restaurant he opened in 2017 in a hotel in the heart of Amsterdam. After just one year, the business received a Michelin star. “We finally got to the point where people got to know us as a bar, hotel and restaurant,” says Toren. “Then we had to close due to corona.”

A corona debt, together with the high costs, still puts a lot of pressure on profits. “Think of energy, personnel, 15 percent more costs for meat and 20 percent for fish. We try to pass that on, but we also look at our ‘competition colleagues’. If something costs 100 euros, we cannot pay 200 euros for it. asking the same.”

Toren thinks that many restaurants face the same problems, despite full tables. “You already see restaurants that are open fewer days.” Review website Tripadvisor recently declared Toren’s restaurant the best restaurant in the world, but he only wants to celebrate that once the debt has been paid off.

Money goes to ‘experience’

It is not the fault of the reservations, an analysis by ABN Amro confirms. This shows that, despite higher costs of living, Dutch people are not cutting back much on catering. “Restaurants have become considerably more expensive, but consumers are more likely to save on things and continue to spend on experiences,” says ABN economist Gerarda Westerhuis.

The bank expects that people will spend 2 percent more on restaurant visits next year than this year. That growth is lower than the two years before, but according to Westerhuis this is about ‘normalization’. In 2022, but also this year, there seemed to be a catch-up effect.

Low score

The Chamber of Commerce recently gauged the mood among catering entrepreneurs. They give themselves a grade of 5 or lower when it comes to confidence in the future of their company. There are concerns about debt and high costs. They also often rate their own well-being as unsatisfactory above average.

The fact that consumers spend good money in the catering industry does not mean that more profit is made. Purchasing costs for food will barely drop and personnel costs will increase significantly next year.

Finding staff has become somewhat easier, but 58 percent of catering entrepreneurs indicate that they still have a lot of difficulty with this.

Not enough own money

During the corona pandemic, relatively many catering entrepreneurs applied for tax deferral. That accrued corona debt must now be repaid.

The Central Bureau of Statistics recently reported that 55 percent of catering entrepreneurs are still dealing with a tax debt. This is much less for the Dutch business community as a whole: 31 percent. In addition, two-thirds of these catering entrepreneurs indicate that they do not have sufficient money of their own to meet their obligations in the short term.

Historically low

The long-awaited wave of bankruptcy has still not materialized, including in the catering industry. ABN Amro expects that 1,490 restaurants will close their doors this year, whether forced or of their own accord. This excludes self-employed persons in the catering industry. The number is slightly lower than in 2022 (1695), but significantly higher than in 2021 (1045), when the number of bankruptcies was historically low.

In November, a CBS survey showed that 11 percent of catering entrepreneurs do not expect to be able to keep their business running for another year.

2023-12-25 15:06:51
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