Your favourite coffee was probably made by a Swiss machine
Switzerland is a world leader when it comes to coffee machines – the chances are that your favourite brew, whether in your kitchen or at Starbucks, was made by a Swiss appliance. How did this come about?
The Alpine nation’s foray into coffee machines began more as a trend follower than a trend setter. The impatient Italians were already getting their coffee prepared in under a minute ever since the Milanese company La Pavoni began producing espresso machines in 1905.
After the First World War, Swiss companies active in other sectors saw an opportunity to branch out into coffee machines, which were all the rage across the Alps in Italy. One such firm was Schaerer, which began life as a small retail shop in 1892. Founder Maurice Schaerer used his engineering skills to develop and design surgical instruments, disinfection devices and operating tables that were much in demand during the First World War. However, Schaerer sensed a change in public sentiment and used his experience in metal processing and the application of steam to develop a steam-operated coffee machine.
“In 1924, Schaerer followed the contemporary longing for luxury and enjoyment born of the deprivations of the First World War and developed a first coffee machine of his own, the high-volume coffee brewer,” says the company’s website.
This new direction for Swiss engineering also kickstarted an appetite for innovation. Schaerer developed the PIC manual doser in 1957 that is now considered one of the first automated coffee machines.
“The companies Egro, Schaerer and Rex were the great pioneers. Thanks to their solid construction and intelligent products, they enjoyed immediate success, first in Switzerland, then in Northern Europe and the Far East. The products were constantly refined and equipped with additional applications. Also genuinely Swiss, these companies provided excellent customer service,” says Chahan Yeretzian, professor and head of the Coffee Excellence Center at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW).
Restaurant revolution
In 1970, Schaerer developed the KM series, which were the world’s first fully automatic coffee machines with an integrated grinder. The timing was great for this innovation: in 1974, the first national collective labour agreement for the Swiss restaurant sector was signed after lengthy negotiations and became law. The agreement required restaurant owners to pay a monthly salary to all their employees and levy a 15% service charge in the total bill. Until then, servers relied on tips to make a living as they were paid only a few hundred Swiss francs as a fixed wage.
While the new law helped bring uniformity in salary, it increased the wage burden on restaurant owners. This, coupled with a general shortage of restaurant staff, forced them to trim their operations.
“The buffet ladies who prepared the drinks at the buffet and controlled the serving were no longer needed in the restaurants. Now the serving staff had to do everything themselves, including filling cold drinks and making coffee,” Yeretzian says.
This change in how coffee was prepared gave a significant boost to Swiss coffee machines over Italian ones that relied on trained baristas.
“Understanding the drivers for innovation is important. Italian entrepreneurs developed the espresso machine during the 20th century primarily as a way of speeding up brewing times in order to serve freshly prepared coffee to individual customers. The Swiss automated machines answered a somewhat different driver: how to simplify the preparation of such beverages by staff who might not have received the necessary training to do so,” says Jonathan Morris, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire and author of the book Coffee: A Global History and podcast series A History of Coffee.
American collaborations
Another significant development in the 1970s was the opening of the first European branches of fast-food chains from the United States. McDonald’s was one of them and made contact with the Swiss kitchen manufacturer Franke in the 1960s to further its European expansion. Franke, which began as a plumbing company in 1911, installed the first McDonald’s kitchen in Munich (the second McDonald’s location in Europe) in 1972. A few years later it began to supply kitchens to the fast-food giant in the US as well. Smelling an opportunity, Franke acquired Swiss coffee machine specialist Augsburger in 1984 and capitalised when the opportunity arose to supply fully automated coffee machines to McDonald’s.
“Franke Coffee Systems stands out by offering customised solutions for the specific needs of large chains. The individualisation and on-demand production of their machines are often decisive factors in the decision-making process,” says Marco Zancolò, CEO and President of Franke Coffee Systems.
Franke was not the only Swiss player to court American food industry behemoths. Thermoplan, another late arrival to the coffee machine business, also decided to ride the coffee wave. Founded in 1974, the Swiss company made automatic whipping cream machines and milk frothers but decided to enter the coffee machine business in 1995. In 1999, the relative newcomer managed to secure a contract to supply coffee machines to Starbucks. Since then, Thermoplan has been the exclusive supplier for Starbucks and has already developed and produced two generations of machines (Mastrena I and II) at its headquarters in Weggis, overlooking Lake Lucerne.
“There’s no denying that this partnership has played a major part in Thermoplan’s current success and continues to do so,” says its CEO Adrian Steiner.
The growing popularity of fancy coffees sold in Starbucks only helped Swiss coffee machine makers to gain more market share. Thermoplan, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, exports 98% of the machines it manufactures to over 80 countries worldwide.
“It was in markets where milk beverages are most popular that the automated machines gained a stronghold exemplified by the adoption of Thermoplan machines by Starbucks,” says coffee historian Morris.
Coffee culture and cluster
Today Swiss brands such as Thermoplan, Franke, Schaerer, Cafina, Rex Royal and Egro are among the largest manufacturers of professional fully automatic coffee machines in the world. Household and semi-professional machines such as Solis and Jura (which has Swiss tennis star Roger Federer as an ambassador) are also world leaders.
While global trade flows in fully automatic coffee machines specifically are not available, Switzerland is among the top nations when it comes to exports of all kinds of coffee machines for both domestic and commercial use.
“I estimate that today around 70% of all fully automatic coffee machines sold worldwide come from Switzerland,” Yeretzian says.
One reason for Swiss dominance given by all companies contacted by SWI swissinfo.ch is the high domestic demand for good coffee.
“This cultural affinity for enjoying coffee drives innovation in the coffee machine industry as manufacturers strive to meet the preferences and expectations of Swiss consumers. This domestic market demand serves as a springboard for Swiss companies to expand internationally,” says Schaerer’s general manager Samuel Wildhaber.
Procafé, the Swiss association for the promotion of coffee, estimates that the Swiss consumed around 9kg of coffee beans per person in 2022, which is twice the European average.
Another reason for Swiss success is the development of an industrial cluster – not just to build machines but also to manufacture their many working parts. Switzerland’s strength in precision engineering and high-quality standards gives it a strategic advantage.
“Access to high-quality raw materials, skilled labour and advanced machinery contributes to the efficiency and competitiveness of Swiss manufacturers,” says Wildhaber of Schaerer.
Thermoplan’s CEO Adrian Steiner also acknowledges the industrial ecosystem effect. “Thermoplan is a Swiss-made company through and through. We manufacture our fully automatic coffee machines in Weggis, with around 80% of the components used coming from domestic production,” he says.
Whether Swiss companies can maintain their competitive advantage will depend on their ability to keep abreast with the latest trends and technology. Thermoplan, for example, is investing heavily in staying ahead of the game. Of the 530 employees working at their headquarters, 120 work in research and development. They cannot afford to let their guard down like the dominant Swiss watch industry did when the disruptive quartz technology almost decimated the sector in the 1970s and 1980s.
“Digitalisation is also opening up unique opportunities in the professional coffee machine sector, such as the development of new business models, precise data analysis or the creation of unique customer experiences,” says Wildhaber.
Edited by Samuel Jaberg/ts
This article has been amended on March 14, 2024. The title of Marco Zancolò has been corrected.
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