Finish your food or someone will call a cop?

In 2015, few weeks before I left Indonesia and headed to Germany, I somehow came across a short article. I can’t remember anymore, whether I read it in facebook or from someone’s blog, but this is what it’s about.

“A family of four: father, mother, and two childreen were eating in a restaurant in Germany. They are a tourist and are courious to try different foods. So they ordered a lot until their table was completely full. All eyes from the other customers were on them, looked surprise and probably shock at the same time. An hour later they called the waiter saying that they wanted to pay. Having seen so many foods left, the waiter asked whether they want to take the left over. They said no. As another customer saw what happened (the family have wasted so many foods), he intuitively called and informed ‘a local cop’, who few minutes later showed up. The cop asked why did the family ordered so many foods when they could not finish it. Not 100% aware of what just happened, the father replied that they are a tourist and want to try all local foods. He also said that they paid the full prices, so it should have not been a problem. “You may have paid full price for the food. But that food didn’t just use human effort to process it. It consumed a lot of natural resources too: water, fertilizer, and the packaging and shipping uses oil, among other things, that will also produce pollution,” the cop replied. “

Couple of days after I arrived in Germany, I was invited by a friend, who is German, to have dinner in a local restaurant, while also met with some of her friends. During waiting for our foods, I told them this story and wanted to know whether it is true. They said that they have never heard about it, neither did they know something like that really exist in Germany.

Having live in Germany for more that two years, I have never seen someone being asked to pay fine because he/she didn’t finish his/her food. When I eat in a local restaurant with some people, we either finish our foods or take away the left overs. Or when there are not much left, I also notice that some of friends just left it on the plate and nobody complains.

Germany is big and I cannot say that this story/article is not true just because I have never personally seen it. To my curiosity I then searched in on google and found this Quora : Can you be fined for wasting food in Germany? . The answer indicates that it can happen in some restaurants. Try and check it for more details.

***