Fourteen days after the earthquake in Petrinja, the state-owned company Pleter will take over food preparation for the victims which had so far been successfully organised by private volunteer hospitality workers, Jutarnji List daily reported on Monday.

It is hard to explain, the daily said, why private hospitality workers were able to organise food for earthquake victims in just one day and prepare as many as 15,000 meals per day while state cooks and waiters, many of whom have been working much less in the last few months due to imposed COVID restrictions, did not even think to offer their assistance.

Pleter CEO: ‘There was no need’ to offer to take over food preparation

The CEO of the Pleter Usluge company, Marijan Marekovic, said that they were waiting for a decision on mobilisation and that it seemed that Pleter would take over the preparation of food for the earthquake victims, adding that they had been already been mobilised in a similar way to prepare food and clean the Zagreb Arena hall.

Asked whether they offered to take over food preparation in Petrinja themselves, Marekovic said there had been no need for that since the volunteers had done a good job, but it is likely that this state-owned company will start taking over that job as soon as today.

According to a 2019 report, the state-owned company employs as many as 1,223 workers in 23 military kitchens, seven food distribution areas, five restaurants in Armed Forces accommodation facilities, nine kitchenettes, 32 military canteens, two cafes and four restaurants offering their services on the market.

Government slams private hospitality workers for ‘preparing food for those who didn’t need hot meals’

In the meantime, hospitality workers whose establishments have been closed realised already on the day of the earthquake that it would be necessary to prepare hot meals for the victims so they went to Petrinja, but after they have prepared about 100,000 meals, the state has decided to replace them with the Pleter company and criticised the hospitality workers because they have allegedly been preparing food even for those who did not need a hot meal, Jutarnji List said.