The “grocery store freedom fight” in Bern

Migros expanded to Bern in early 1930. While it was able to open its shop without problem, its sales vans were impounded because they did not have permits. Migros protested by dropping leaflets from a two-seater airplane flying over the city.

Migros AG opened its first shop in Bern on 25 February 1930. Its sales vans set out two days later and Gottlieb Duttweiler sent a telegraph to the municipal president urging him not to allow «financial and clique interests to triumph over the clear interests of the people.» But the vehicles had no permits and were impounded by the police.
Leaflets rained down from the sky the following day. «I am Fritzli Gerber, a Migros driver and pilot from Bern», read the astonished people, «where yesterday the Migros vehicles (...) were held captive at the municipal tram depot. I had my brother recover them because I, as a boy from Bern, could not bear this.»
The sales vans were only permitted to drive again after a year-long court battle and soon after that, the fees were increased too much for the sales vans to remain profitable. And yet that’s why the shop in Bern ended up with record sales. As Duttweiler once wrote: «Our little ship, light and lean, cleverly commanded and buoyed by the friendship of consumers, will float over these waves!» As it turned out, the next time Migros vehicles were on the roads in Canton Bern was 1960.