“Well done, Aproz”

The Migros cooperative in Geneva incorporated Aproz mineral water into its product range in 1951. Seven years later, when the company was on the brink of bankruptcy, Migros purchased its fresh water spring, renovated its bottling plant and constructed a railway bridge.
When Otto Bumann from Valais buys a decaying farm in the village of Aproz, the seller complains about a troublesome spring under the old bakery. The water is not suitable “to drink, or to cook or to wash with”. To his surprise, Bumann discovers that it is a valuable mineral water spring. In 1947, he builds a wooden shed as the first bottling plant and sells the mineral water locally. Four years later, he signs a supply contract with the Migros Cooperative Geneva. Despite the good turnover, Gottlieb Duttweiler is not interested when it is proposed that he purchase the bottling plant of Seba AG. Only when the company is threatened with bankruptcy in 1958 does Migros take a 90 percent stake of the share capital. Step by step, Migros expands the capacity of the plant and the range of products. In 1968, it announces a “milestone in the history of the Aproz spring”: it is the “changeover from the swing top to the crown cap”. Today, Aproz AG is the largest Swiss mineral water bottler, with annual sales of about 200 million litres.