“The cooking fat war”

Migros branched out into food production in 1928 with Meilener Süssfett. The cooking fat was a great success and competitors were quick to copy the name. Gottlieb Duttweiler fought them all the way to the federal court, but unfortunately his efforts were in vain.

In his very first flyer in 1925, Gottlieb Duttweiler speaks of his suspicion of brand articles and excessive advertising. His motto is: “Factual examination, not advertising cult.” Migros, as he explains to the housewives, does not pay “for labels, names and packaging” and is therefore able to sell its goods cheaper.
He is bothered by the monopoly of the generally international concerns, and hence of the best-known brand articles. Using the terminology of the time, he calls them ‘trusts’, and they are his favourite enemy.
The longest and most bitter battle Duttweiler leads is against Unilever, including Sais, its representative company in Switzerland. When he launches Meilener Süssfett in 1929, Unilever immediately starts “battle procedures”. It lowers the prices of its coconut fat Palmin and butter fat Palmina, and starts what Duttweiler calls a “real avalanche of advertising”. When the foreign company advertises nostalgically in Swiss German, Duttweiler asks sarcastically: “Why do you choose an old-fashioned lady with a head full of hairpins for your advertisements instead of, for example, a cunning chemist in a white coat?”

In 1931, Gottlieb Duttweiler moves to open provocation, launching the cooking fat Alpha, with a name similar to the well-known Astra produced by the Unilever concern. When nothing happens, he launches Nussgalminaa few months later. This name is a combined attack on the two Unilever products Nussgold and Palmina. To Unilever, this is a step too far and its Swiss subsidiary, Sais, demands on its behalf that the name Nussgalmina be removed from the brand register. Duttweiler has achieved his goal: a lawsuit that gives his concern a public hearing.
When Duttweiler loses at the commercial court, he takes his appeal to the Federal Court. But he also loses there, as the judges note the “confusing similarities” between the two product names and are convinced that the choice has been made “quite clearly”, so that the two brands are confused with each other.
Duttweiler changes the name of the sweet fat to Santa Sabina and sneeringly summarises the decision: “Nussgalmina is too similar and completely dubious”, because the public does not notice the ‘Nuss’ but only the ‘galmina’. And that upsets the “poor 6 billion oil trust” doing its “milking”. His fighting spirit is unbroken: “Downhearted, yes, but give up, no; once again, no.” And, in fact, he fights in almost half a dozen more cases against Unilever before 1954, seeing it as his “duty and destiny” to make Migros “a counter-balance to the power politics of the oil trusts”.