Green National Council is concerned about Swiss schnapps and calls for help from the federal government: “Young people are drinking vodka today, no more cherry”

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A beep for the beep: A Kafi Luz promotes biodiversity. Because pear, cherry and other high stems are not only suppliers of valuable raw materials for spirits, but above all valuable habitats for various animals and plants.

What green alderman Christine Badertscher (41) proposes is therefore not a bad idea. The Bernese native, who grew up on a farm, proposes to set up a competence center for schnapps at the federal level. Fruit brandies such as Träsch, Kirsch or Vielle Prune are a “national cultural asset” – and should therefore be better protected and supported, she demands.

“People are not allowed to drink liquor anymore!”

“I’m not saying that people should drink more schnapps!” explains Badertscher, co-chairman of the association Hochstamm Suisse. But she would like to see an increase in the share of Swiss spirits in the shot glass. In the case of standard trees, distilling gin is an important money-making opportunity, as many fruits are not attractive enough to be sold at retail. “And if the fruit cannot be marketed, a large part of the standard trees will disappear.”

According to Badertscher, there are several problems for Swiss schnapps distilleries: On the one hand, since the liberalization of the spirits market in the 1990s, they have had to pay the same alcohol tax on their schnapps as foreign producers. However, due to the high production costs, Swiss fruit brandy is much more expensive than spirits from abroad anyway. “There are estimates that the share of Swiss schnapps in total consumption in Switzerland has fallen from 80 to 20 percent since liberalization,” says the Green National Council.

The federal government should investigate measures

Moreover, fruit brandy is no longer in fashion. “The young people nowadays drink vodka and no longer kirsch”, so Badertscher. In addition to all this, the Swiss distillers have been since 2015, when the Federal Alcohol Administration was disbanded, would no longer have an authorized contact at the federal level.

This is where the politician wants to start. With her initiative, she calls on the federal government to hire a specialist who well versed in the subject and can support burner to check. Badertscher emphasizes that it is not about demanding more subsidies or promoting advertising for schnapps – also given the poorly developed alcohol prevention measures in this country.

The question should fall on fertile ground in Parliament. After all, the powerful bourgeois farmers’ lobby in parliament has seldom resisted supporting agriculture. People are curious about the response of the Federal Council, says Markus Ritter (56), National Council member of the Center and chairman of the Farmers Union. “We believe the matter is worth investigating and will discuss it internally.”

Source:Blick