ECONOMY er-national

Turkish catering sector to suffer during Ramadan

ADANA - Anatolia News Agency | 7/25/2010 12:00:00 AM |

Turkey’s catering sector is facing tough times due to summer vacations and the start of the fasting month of Ramadan on Aug. 11.

Turkey’s catering sector is facing tough times due to summer vacations and the start of the fasting month of Ramadan on Aug. 11.

“Business volume is expected to narrow by 50 percent,” Levent Duyuler, chairman of the Catering Companies’ Association in Adana, or ADAYSAD, said Saturday.

According to Duyuler, Ramadan will affect nearly 10,000 catering companies negatively, causing business volumes to go down rapidly as people fasting at home rather than work.

Because people fasting consume no food or liquids during the daytime, Duyuler said, the catering sector will be badly hit. “Fasting people prefer taking days off for their holiday during Ramadan,” he said, as this would make it easier to fast and to spend more time with the family through the Muslim holy month.

“The main customers of the catering sector are generally large factories and companies with a high number of workers. In addition to that, the schools in which we serve food are also closed due to the summer holiday. This has already narrowed business volumes. Thus, with the start of Ramadan, many catering companies may come close to bankruptcy,” he said.

“Since the volume of business will shrink rapidly with the start of Ramadan, we will also encourage the workers of catering companies to take their annual leave during the same period,” he told journalists.