Fairness for the Döner

Despite the recent rotten meat scandal, Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week that she will enjoy an occasional Döner, the Turkish lamb sandwich that can be found at fast-food stands on practically every corner in German cities.

Many other fans of the Turkish delicacy are back to doing the same.

Although Döner consumption had dropped by as much as 50 percent in some places in Germany following the meat scandal, revenue has nearly boomeranged back to where it was before, said Remzi Kaplan from the Association of Turkish Döner Producers in Europe.

Intensive quality assurance process

"We have sufficient monitoring," said Kaplan, whose Döner business has annually received awards for quality since 2004m, at a Berlin press conference under the motto "Fairness for the Döner."

"Anyone can come to our company anytime and see how the Döners are produced," he added.

With regular microbiological trend analyses, germ and odor checks and temperature measurements, Döner producers are bound to the hygiene and health standards set by the European Union.

Tests are conducted throughout the entire process, from the arrival of the raw meat to the production and delivery of the Döner skewer. Each skewer is also marked with a unique serial number so that it can be traced back from the retailer to the producer, if necessary.

"Warehouses are weakest link"

During the recent series of police checks, some rancid meat was discovered at Döner stands, but Cedar Coskun, a quality assurance advisory for the Döner industry, said the producers of the giant lamb skewers were not to blame.

"As far as rotten meat is concerned, the weakest link in the chain is the mass warehouses," Coskun said. "They're the ones that store tons of meat over several years."

Even if the recent affair is not exclusively a Döner scandal, the industry isn't totally off the hook.

Of the 12,000 Döner stands in Germany, around 1,000 sell their wares at dumping prices. To offer a Döner for 79 or 99 euro cents ($1 to $1.20), quality has to suffer, said Kaplan, Berlin's largest Döner producer.

Minimum price proposed

Kaplan's co-worker Sir Atesever has advocated a minimum price of three euros per Döner as a means of insuring quality ingredients.

Mehmet Cam, deputy chairman of the Society of Turkish Producers in Europe, said he supports banning from the business altogether producers that infringe on quality standards.

"The names of those food establishments that don't follow the regulations -- not only in the Döner branch but in general -- should be made public," Cam said. "It should be very strict."

As a consequence of the meat scandal, the German ministry of economics is currently preparing a law that would prohibit the sale of food products under the acquisition price.