Swiss customers will decide if Migros stores will end the founder’s ban on selling alcohol.

Zurich (Reuters) – The founder of the Swiss supermarket chain Migros didn’t allow alcohol sales when he started the business in the 1920s because he thought it was bad for people’s health. However, if cooperative members vote in favor of the change, Migros could soon start selling wine, beer, and liquor.

The alcohol ban was put in place in 1928, three years after the chain’s founder, Gottlieb Duttweiler, started his groundbreaking retail work by sending out five trucks with just six basic items to sell directly to households from one village to the next.

About 2.3 million members of the cooperative that owns the stores can vote by June 4 on whether to break with tradition and sell alcohol in the stores, which critics say would go against what Duttweiler was founded on.

Because Duttweiler cared about his customers’ health, he banned the sale of alcohol and tobacco in the stores that grew out of his truck business. Even though alcohol will be sold, tobacco will still be against the law.

Addiction experts say that alcoholics will no longer have a safe place to shop. In April, the newspaper Tages-Anzeiger published the results of a poll that showed more than half of the nearly 10,000 Swiss people polled did not want Migros to sell alcohol.

On the website of the Migros magazine, “Gottlieb Duttweiler would turn over in his grave if Migros sold alcohol now,” said 76-year-old retiree Willi Siegenthaler in an quote.

At first, Duttweiler’s trucks only sold coffee, soap, rice, sugar, coconut oil, and pasta. The group, which also does business outside of Switzerland, made almost 30 billion Swiss francs in sales in 2021.

The business is still run by Duttweiler’s socially conscious ideas, and it supports adult education and cultural activities. When stores make too much money, they have to cut prices.

Stefan Zurbuchen, a 35-year-old bicycle mechanic, is one of the people who don’t want alcohol sales. He said, “It’s a dangerous drug, so it doesn’t need to be sold by another grocery store.”

By mid-June, we’ll know how the vote went.

$1 is worth 0.9621 Swiss francs.