The first factory

Boycotted by suppliers, Migros began making its own products. The first factory, Produktion AG in Meilen, manufactured cooking fat, jam and stock cubes, as well as Tschips. Today it’s known as Midor.

The alcohol-free wine and tinned goods factory in Meilen is the first manufacturing operation of the young Migros AG. Its purchase in the spring of 1928 is Gottlieb Duttweiler’s answer to the food manufacturers that boycott him.
The small factory, next to the train station, specialises in the alcohol-free fermentation of fruit juices, and also produces tinned goods for a few years. Duttweiler renames it Produktion AG Meilen, PAG, and expands production. In addition to apple and grape juice, it starts producing Meilener Süssfett, a cooking fat with a high proportion of butter. A cooking oil refinery is added soon after. In 1934, however, the entire fat production operation is relocated to Basel.
In Meilen, jams and compotes are also produced, in addition to stock cubes, smoked bacon, tinned fruit and vegetables, and “thin potato slices fried in fat” called Tschips. But all these products are just episodes in the history of PAG. Only the production of baked goods, which starts in 1930, is permanent. This production is increasingly rationalised and automated after the war, and is still today the core business of the manufacturing operation that since 1996 has been called Midor.