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We are a cooperative with over two million members so nearly every household in Switzerland is an owner of Migros . Our core business is to sell food in our supermarkets but then we also have a wide range of non-food products ,” remarks Sandro Glanzmann , Sustainability Specialist for Non-Food Products .

“ What ’ s also special is that the Migros Group has its own industry [ M-Industry ] in which we produce a large portion of our food assortment . Also , we have our own industry , which produces cosmetics and washing detergents for Migros . We have our own factories which produce these products .”

Migros was founded in 1925 in Zürich as a private enterprise by Gottlieb Duttweiler , who had the idea of selling just six basic foodstuffs at low prices to householders . At first , he sold only coffee , rice , sugar , pasta , coconut fat and soap from five lorries that went from one village to another . His strategy to cut the intermediate trade and their margins was met by broad resistance from his competitors , who goaded the producers to boycott him . As a reaction to this threat , Migros started creating its own line of goods beginning with meat , milk and chocolate .

Today , as one of the 40 largest retailers in the world , Migros has greatly expanded the number of goods it creates for itself . “ Our own industry delivers about 80 % of the food products that the Migros Retail company sells ,” reveals Manfred Bötsch , Head of Sustainability at Migros Retail . With its 25 Swiss companies and seven foreign businesses , M-Industry produces over 20,000 high-quality food and non-food products , making it one of the biggest own-brand producers in the world .

Reducing impact As such a large producer , Migros has committed to reducing energy consumption within its supply chain . “ Two years ago , we adopted a new sustainability strategy . In this strategy , we designed the main topics we thought Migros needed to take action on in terms of sustainability . Unsurprisingly , one area of action was that we wanted

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