Germany challenges Turkey’s protected status claim for the doner kebab

Germany and Turkey have crossed swords over the doner kebab, with Berlin appealing Ankara’s attempt to have the beloved street food given the same protected EU status as Spain’s serrano ham and Neapolitan pizza.

The food fight began in April when Turkey applied to register the name doner as its “guaranteed traditional speciality” across Europe, meaning the label could only be used by those conforming to designated production methods and specifications for the meat inside.

Germany argues this would create big bureaucratic hurdles and drive up the price of its most popular snack. With so-called doner inflation already an explosive cost-of-living issue on voters’ minds in the run-up to pivotal state elections in September, Berlin filed its veto just ahead of a European deadline on Wednesday.

If Ankara’s application is successful, only beef and lamb “horizontally sliced into cutlets with a thickness of 3-5 mm” could be sold as doner. Chicken cutlets could be thicker in the poultry variety, while ground meat would be banned entirely.

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The age of the animals of origin and the knife for slicing would also have to meet distinct specifications, as well as the spices for marinating the meat, according to the application sponsored by International Doner Federation in Istanbul, which argues that the dish is an integral part of Turkey’s “culinary heritage”.

The stakes are high, with German kebab sales totalling around €7bn a year. An estimated one in three Germans eat at least one doner a month, but it is becoming increasingly hard on their wallets.

The far-left Die Linke party, which has called for parliament to introduce a Dönerpreisbremse or doner price cap, says kebab prices have surged to €10 in some German cities, up from €4 just two years ago.

Both Turkey and Germany, with its 2.7-million-strong Turkish diaspora, stake claims to being the birthplace of the doner kebab as it is now widely consumed.

The delicacy of thinly sliced meat grilled on an upright rotisserie was introduced to Germany by Turkish migrants, who topped it with chopped vegetables and slathered it with garlic or chilli sauce.

Its bicultural significance touched off a spat in Germany during a state visit by the president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to Istanbul in April with a doner skewer in tow.

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If Turkey is successful in its registration attempt, the new rules would have “catastrophic consequences for gastronomy businesses as well as consumers,” Ingrid Hartges, head of the German Hotel and Restaurant Association, told local media.

She said there was no need for EU involvement in doner kebabs, which already fall under “clear and detailed” national standards set in 1992.

New European regulations would constitute “an intervention in the German market with a tangible economic impact”, the agriculture ministry led by Cem Özdemir, a Green politician with Turkish roots, told the German edition of Politico.

“It’s an attack on Germany’s cultural identity,” said Berlin sociologist Eberhard Seidel, who wrote a book about the history of the doner, in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Germany nevertheless produces a dizzying variety of riffs on the homegrown doner kebab including veal and vegetarian options, satirical potato-based varieties in Oldenburg and leberkäs meatloaf kebabs in Bavaria. Some shops even offer chocolate doners for dessert.

The two countries now have six months to find a compromise, otherwise the European Commission will have to rule on the dispute. Although Turkey does not belong to the European Union, third countries may register products for protection in the bloc.