Migros — BrandWiki

Migros

Overview

Federation of Migros Cooperatives

native name	Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund Fédération des coopératives Migros Federazione delle cooperative Migros
type	Cooperative
founded	August 1925
founder	Gottlieb Duttweiler
hq location city	Zurich
hq location country	Switzerland
industry	Retail
products	Supermarkets, food industry, petrol, electronics, books, home-wares, etc.
revenue	32.00 billion CHF
revenue year	2024
operating income	668 million CHF
income year	2021
num employees	97,541 (2021)
website	www.migros.ch

Migros is Switzerland's largest retail company, its largest supermarket chain and largest employer. It is also one of the forty largest retailers in the world. It is structured in the form of a cooperative federation (the Federation of Migros Cooperatives), with more than two million members.

It co-founded Turkey's largest retailer, also named Migros, which became independent of Migros Switzerland in 1975.

The name comes from the French "mi" for half or mid-way and "gros", which means wholesale. Thus the word connotes prices that are halfway between retail and wholesale, along with the business model (medium-scale semi-wholesale). The logo of the company is a large orange M. Migros is often referred to as "the orange giant" (German: oranger Riese, French: géant orange, Italian: gigante arancio).[1]

History

Migros was founded in 1925 in Zurich as a private enterprise by Gottlieb Duttweiler, who had the idea of selling just six basic foodstuffs at low prices to householders who, in those days, did not have ready access to markets of any kind.[2]

Philosophy

Gottlieb Duttweiler was concerned about the health of his customers and decided that Migros would not sell any alcoholic beverages nor any tobacco.[13] It is still the case today; although Denner, owned by the Migros group, does sell alcoholic beverages and cigarettes.

Here is a summary of some characteristics of Migros and its "responsible" philosophy guided by Gottlieb and Adele Duttweiler's "fifteen theses":[14][15] Migros was also a prominent supporter of women's suffrage in Switzerland, it financed a considerable amount of the yes campaigns in the different cantons and also the two national referendums in 1959 and 1971.[16] It counted with an in-house women suffrage committee and for the yes campaign of the successful national referendum in 1971, Migros gave out paper bags printed with advertising for the yes campaign.[16] In its weekly company magazine, which counted with a circulation of about 600,000 magazines, it published articles supporting women's suffrage ahead of the referendum for several weeks.[16]

Adèle and Gottlieb Duttweiler's "fifteen theses" (1950), without being legally binding, are an ethical heritage of Migros. They contain values and guidance such as a goal of "serving the community", "The general principle that we profess is to place people at the center of the economy" and "The general interest will be placed higher than the interests of the Migros cooperatives".[15]

The company attracted controversy, however, when in 1977 it fired its most outspoken internal critic, Hans A. Pestalozzi, who was then working for the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute, a think tank whose goal was to investigate the shortcomings of capitalism in modern society.

In 2021, Migros began considering alcohol sales in its supermarkets. A June 2022 vote was held and the sale of alcohol was rejected by each of the ten regional cooperatives by an overwhelming majority of their members.[17][18]

Does not sell any alcoholic beverages nor any tobacco (It does so on its online shop, however);
Does not pay any dividends;
If the earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) reaches 5% of the market value of the company, the supermarkets have to lower their prices;
Organised as a cooperative (federation of regional cooperatives), with more than two million shareholders;
Every adult living in Switzerland can become a member (receive a share for free) and vote at the general assembly;
Uses 1% of its revenue to social and cultural projects.

Migros today

To this day, Migros keeps the cooperative society as its form of organisation. A large part of the Swiss population are members of the Migros cooperative – around 2 million of Switzerland's total population of 8.4 million,[19][20] thus making Migros a supermarket chain that is owned by its customers. More than 90% of the assortment of goods is produced by ninety subsidiaries of Migros.

It has obligated itself to spend one percent of its annual turnover for financing cultural projects in a broad sense; the sub-organisation taking care of this is called Migros Kulturprozent[21] ("cultural percent").

The supermarkets are categorized in the three size classes of M, MM and MMM. The firm's loyalty card is the M-cumulus card (a play on the word accumulate and a type of cloud formation).

M-Budget and Migros Sélection

In 1996, influenced by the budget ranges in supermarket chains in Australia,[22] Migros made their budget range called M-Budget with seventy products aimed at those with low incomes and large families. Now it has grown to 330 products including mountain bikes, snowboards, mp3 players, milk chocolate, jeans, shoes and lighters. M-Budget products have a standardized packaging color scheme, consisting of a grass green background with the Migros logo in small white text repeated over it.

Many of these products are produced in limited quantities rather than as an integral, permanent part of the Migros line. Whether they become permanent depends on their success. This, combined with the considerable brand recognition that Migros enjoys, conveys a certain amount of desirability to the rarer products. As a result, M-Budget items will sometimes be considered collectibles, as it is not always sure that they will ever be produced again.

To promote the range in the early 2000s Migros developed M-Budget Party tickets costing 9.90 CHF including free non-alcoholic drinks (cola, lemonade and orange juice) and snacks (crisps, chocolate and cakes).

In 2005, together with Swisscom, Migros launched M-Budget Mobile, a pay-as-you-go MVNO mobile virtual network operator.

Also in 2005, Migros introduced a premium line called Migros sélection, featuring for the most part food products typically associated with higher budgets and prepared in different fashions than is available through general stock. Sélection products also have their distinctive packaging, with pearl white and gold color schemes.

In April 2006, Migros announced the M-Budget credit card, an initiative between the Federation of Migros Cooperatives, GE Money Bank and MasterCard, originally with an annual fee of CHF 4.40, which was very low compared to credit card annual fees of CHF 100 for a MigrosBank MasterCard Argent credit card. The card was ready by the autumn 2006. After Coop, the biggest competitor of Migros, announced a credit card without any annual fee, Migros scrapped its annual fee.

In 2014 the company again followed its main competitor Coop and started implementing self-service checkout.[23]