State extends local supplier funding – salzburg.ORF.at
politics
In order to slow down the dying out of grocers, the state of Salzburg has already distributed 7.7 million euros in local supplier funding within 30 years. Now this model is to be extended, even if very small shops get nothing.
Since 1906 there has been a grocery store in Sankt Jakob am Thurn in the municipality of Puch (Tennengau), which Elke Ellinger has been running for 25 years. However, only as a part-time job, because the income is no longer sufficient to survive today. For ten years, Ellinger has not received any local supplier funding from the state.
“At the beginning, when I took over the business and there was even more need, I got the local supplier subsidy. However, the population structure has changed over the years. There are a lot of people who work abroad because there are no jobs up here. For that reason, of course, I had to limit the offer,” says Ellinger.
A full range is a prerequisite for funding
However, a complete range of groceries is a prerequisite for the promotion of the state and for very small retailers more of a problem than a maximum annual turnover of four million euros or a maximum sales area of 600 square meters.
The newly built grocery store on Landesstraße in Puch meets all the criteria for funding: “If you start your own business, you’re happy that you get every penny from somewhere. It’s no longer so easy to get money from the banks and then it’s good if you have a subsidy you can rely on,” says savings merchant Georg Reichl.
Constant number of local suppliers as proof of success
In the future, too, only shops with a full range should be funded, says Economics Officer and Governor Wilfried Haslauer (ÖVP): “Of course, partial ranges are also important, but the question is whether they should be and we see that the number of local suppliers remains constant. This is also proof of the correctness of the funding measure. The aim of the funding is local suppliers with a full range,” says Haslauer.
Elke Ellinger will not give up even without funding and will continue to run her village shop for the locals in St. Jakob.