Migros butchers

The Migros Markets offer self-service pre-packaged fresh meat for the first time, making them tough competition for traditional butchers. Demand for affordable meat led Migros to build a central meat factory in 1958, in collaboration with Micarna AG.

The sale of fresh meat is part of the concept of the Migros Markets introduced in 1952. In the Migros butcher, the customers can either be served by a trained butcher or can choose for themselves from the packed fresh meat.
The butcher section is separated from the rest of the sales floor by a pane of glass and hence is actually a shop-in-a-shop. Modern air conditioning equipment ensures “particularly low temperatures” and “down-lighters provide natural lighting” to make the meat look more appetising.
Butchers feel that their existence is threatened by the lower prices of Migros. In the Schweizerischen Metzgers-Zeitung (Swiss butchers’ magazine) in 1954, a butcher's wife complains that Gottlieb Duttweiler also now sells meat, and not just in self-service. Under the title “The business without a soul”, she writes: “You big man, who has created this way here, you who stride from success to success, hard and inconsiderate, you who only see money and profit, you cold-bloodedly ignore the emotional hardships of your fellow people.” She can not know that four years later Migros will build a central ‘meat factory’ with Micarna AG in Courtepins.