When former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder heard in 2021 of the VW management’s plans to modernize one of the canteens and turn it into a vegetarian restaurant, he immediately reacted indignantly.
“If I had still been on the supervisory board of #VW, something like this would not have happened,” he wrote on LinkedIn at the time. “A good currywurst has always been the ‘worker’s powerhouse’ and therefore indispensable in a German company like VW.”
Schröder was apparently not far off the mark. During the corona pandemic, staff were so hungry for meat products that VW even introduced a delivery service that brought the typical VW currywurst to the home office.
According to ‘Der Spiegel’, it was ultimately an employee survey that led to the abolition of the vegetarian initiative. Based on the results of the survey, the company has announced that it will again put meat and fish on the menu in addition to some vegetarian alternatives.