He gifted his company to his customers by distributing its shares: Who is Gottlieb Duttweiler?
With the Migros he founded, the Swiss entrepreneur created a company that is an example of a cooperative. In 1941, he gifted his company to his customers by distributing its shares. Born in Zurich, Duttweiler was the child of a peasant family.
His father worked as a manager in a food company in Zurich. After graduating from high school, Gottlieb, the only son of the family with four sisters, did an internship at the import company Pfister & Sigg, which sold foodstuffs and raw materials from all over the world.
Duttweiler traveled around Europe for three years after 1907 before returning as a principal employee to the company where he had interned in 1910.
In 1917, four years after his marriage to Adele Bertschi, he became a partner in the company that became Pfister & Duttweiter. His dreams of owning a company came to an end due to the economic depression that occurred after the First World War. His company went bankrupt.
Gottlieb Duttweiler (15 August 1888 – 8 June 1962) was a Swiss businessman and politician, founder of both the Migros chain of grocery stores and the Alliance of Independents (Landesring der Unabhängigen, LDU) party.
Duttweiler left Switzerland with his wife in 1923 to settle as a farmer in Brazil. There he grew sugar cane, coffee, and corn. Because his wife Adele could not stand the climate of Brazil, they had to leave this new life they were trying to establish for themselves in 1924.
While Duttweiler was engaged in agricultural work, his attention was drawn to the huge difference between the price he received as a producer and the price the consumer had to pay. That's why he founded the sales organization called Migros, which he perceived as a bridge between producers and consumers.
With the money he saved, he bought five Ford-T trucks turned them into wheeled stores, and drove them around the streets of Zurich. He announced the transit hours of the trucks through flyers distributed to homes. Initially, six products were offered for sale in the trucks, which were equipped in a very primitive way: coffee, rice, sugar, types of pasta, coco oil, and soap. Since Duttweiler calculated a profit margin of only 8%, he was able to sell his products much cheaper than his competitors.
His success showed that he was on the right track. Migros opened its first store in 1926. In the following period, fixed and mobile sales points increased and their products diversified. However, many brand product manufacturers boycotted Migros, which kept profit margins very low. In response, Duttweiler bought factories and established manufacturing enterprises, so that by the mid-30s his products consisted mainly of his own brands.
He did not sell alcoholic beverages and tobacco, which he saw as "the biggest enemy of the family". The Swiss Federal Council passed the branch ban law in 1933 to protect the traditional retail trade. In this way, a limitation was imposed on Migros' expansion in the field of food products. Duttweiler then turned his hand to other areas. The travel agency "Hotelplan", which he founded in 1935, was the beginning of these.
Migros Becoming a Cooperative Duttweiler, who had been involved in politics since 1935 and was a member of the Swiss National Council with some interruptions until his death, transformed Migros AŞ into twelve regional cooperatives in 1941. The sales value of the company at that date was approximately 15 million Swiss Francs. He distributed shares of 30 francs each to his customers free of charge.
In the same year, Migros Cooperatives Union (MGM) was established as a holding company. Foundation Duttweiler, who was concerned about Migros becoming a purely profit-oriented business after his death, established the Gottlieb and Adele Duttweiler Foundation with his wife in 1950, which would undertake consultancy and supervision duties regarding Migros.
Duttweiler carried out a large-scale diversification of Migros in the 50s. This cooperative included banking and insurance branches, among other areas. Duttweiler passed away in Zurich at the age of 73 after a second infarction in 1962.
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It's quite simply THE Migros' love story: that of Adele and Gottlieb Duttweiler.
https://corporate.migros.ch/en/story/love-story-adele-and-gottlieb-duttweiler