Nestle expands, Migros deals go social, Russian renewable energy in, ice cream boss dies
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss business news highlights this week:
- Nestlé is expanding its largest instant coffee manufacturing plant, in Russia, investing CHF240 million for its soluble coffee factory in Timashevsk, Russia, in the Krasnodar region. The plant uses freeze-dry technology and is Nestlé’s largest soluble coffee factory in Europe as well as the company’s biggest investment project in Russia. The products are sold to the Russian market and for export to other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries. Nestlé Russia employss 10,000 people; the company has been active in Russia for 140 years.
- Supermarket giant Migros is taking firm steps to move shoppers online, with special discounts for its online fans the wave of the future. Online shopping, through Le Shoppe, has been growing strongly for several years, and the shoppers’ club Migipedia has allowed the food chain to ask consumers what they want. Now Migros is offering special discounts in its electronics departments, but only through its Facebook page, only to “fans”. More such special deals, online fans only need apply, are down the road, the store promises.
- Switzerland and Russia signed a Memorandum of Understanding Wednesday 19 October covering renewable energy and energy efficiency, agreeing to work more closely together in these two areas. The agreement was reached on the sidelines of the bi-annual meeting of the International Energy Agency ministerial conference in Paris, France.
- In other energy news: The Federal Council has drawn up stricter criteria for members of the board of the Federal Nuclear Energy Inspection body, to ensure its independence, following criticism earlier in the year when media and public attention focused sharply on Swiss nuclear energy operations. Tuesday the lower house of Parliament annuonced that its energy commission has recommended strongly that it accept revisions made by the upper house to motions that will formally end Switzerland’s use of nuclear energy.
- Ueli Prager died Saturday 15 October, age 95. He founded the Mövenpick line of restaurants and hotels in 1948 and launched a number of branded products starting with coffee in 1963 and ice cream in 1968. His family sold their majority share in the business in the 1990s.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The thin line between personal freedom in the form of public nudity and public health concerns over such touchy issues as bare bums on restaurant chairs may soon lead to tougher legislation in that city of baring-it-all comfortably, San Francisco. The Los Angeles Times notes that a debate is underway in California over acceptable behaviour since a city official introduced “a measure to put limits on nudity and provide posterior protection for public seating”.
The San Francisco Chronicle sees the new legislation as one more effort to make the city appear “kooky” because it is so limited in scope. “Why? If these guys were opening a trench coat and exposing themselves to bystanders in a supermarket parking lot we’d call them creeps. But if they sit on public chairs and expose themselves to bystanders, they’re defenders of free speech. Here’s some free speech – when moms and dads walk their kids to school, they don’t want to see you naked. This isn’t a civil rights issue, it’s just obnoxious.”
The newspaper points out that even Berkeley and Marin have anti-nudity laws.
ABC7 news report
Director Jean-Jacques Gauer, Executive chef Edgard Bovier, GaultMillau Editor-in-chief Urs Heller, Albrecht Haake from Carl F Bucherer, which co-sponsors the prize
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Lausanne Palace has been named Switzerland’s best hotel for 2011 by GaultMillau, an honour conferred, says the food and hospitality organization, in part because it goes well beyond meeting the norms for a five-star hotel, but with the record-breaking 58 points accumulated by its executive chef weighing in its favour.
GaultMillau attributes some of the success to the CHF60 million quietly invested in the past 10 years in the 146 rooms and 30 suites, thanks to a solid partnership between German owner Ute Funke and the hotel & spa’s managing director, Jean-Jacques Gauer. But it says that executive chef Edgard Bovier has earned more points, when all the restaurants he oversees are taken together, than any other chef:
La Table d’Edgard (17 points)
Le Côté Jardin (14 points)
La Brasserie du Grand-Chêne
Le Palace Sushi Zen.
Two other Lausanne restaurants have been “inspired” by Edgard Bovier, says GaultMillau: La Grappa (14 points) and Le Château d’Ouchy (13 points).
The 56-year-old Bovier, originally from canton Valais, has been working in the hotel’s kitchens for more than 40 years.
Foreign tobacco companies may have undermined new laws
China will soon take the dramatic step of banning cigarettes in hotels, restaurants, shopping malls and most other indoor public spaces, 1 May, but the huge shift away from public smoking comes with so little in the way of punishment that the sting is missing from the new laws. China has one of the world’s highest smoking rates, over 30 percent of the adult population.
If observers in China are complacently shrugging, the government, which signed a 2005 convention with the World Health Organization, is slowly but surely putting in place several measures to curb smoking, such as raising taxes on cigarettes. Producers of TV shows and films were told at the start of 2011 to curb smoking scenes after a survey showed that 33 percent of teenagers wanted to smoke after seeing people do it on-screen.
Smoking is estimated by the government to have killed 1.2 million Chinese in 2005, but that annual rate could triple by 2030, they fear.
Tobacco accounts for 7 percent of government revenues in China, according to Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, a possible factor in slowing down the adoption of new no-smoking measures, the newspaper implies, but The New Yorker magazine published an article 25 March that points to efforts made by foreign tobacco manufacturers to seriously undermine the Chinese government’s efforts.
Your guide to a holiday-season weekend in Zurich, an easy train ride from Lake Geneva
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Zurich, December, view over the Limmat, universities above the Niederdorf
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The charm of Zurich is at its brightest in the lead-up to Christmas. Daytime offers plenty of activities for children and adults alike, but the real fun starts in the evening. The entire city appears to spill out of offices and shops to socialize in the snowy streets, tucking into cozy cafes and restaurants when the weather turns too brisk. It’s an easy two hours and 50 minute by train from Geneva, 30 minutes less from Lausanne, making it the perfect mini-vacation for people in the Lake Geneva area who want to leave home without the cost and fatigue of going abroad.
Swarovski crystals cover Zurich main station giant tree
The week before Christmas sees Zurich shoppers filling the stores and boutiques, as they do in any big city. Shops are open Sunday 19 December throughout the city and they are open later than usual in the evenings up to Christmas. The Bahnhof, or main train station, has what is arguably the best Christmas market in Switzerland, with a great selection of gifts, but there are also scores of small Christmas stands sprinkled around the city and small markets that are good fun.
Be sure to go back to the Bahnhof in the evening, when the locals invade it, sipping hot gluwein, the spicy scent of which fills the air. The giant Swarovski Christmas tree is an astonishing site, with over 5,000 crystal decorations. Given that these start at CHF130 in the Swarovski shop on the Bahnhofstrasse, the cost of the tree as well as its beauty are enough to make you pause. The tree itself is a 35-year-old Zurich pine from the forest above the city.
Your best starting point is at the main train station’s tourism office, where you can get excellent maps, brochures and the Zurich City Card (see below). The Bahnhof station can be confusing at the best of times, and renovations don’t make it easier to get your bearings. Do what the locals do and look up: the huge, colourful Guardian Angel (Schutzengel) by artist Niki de St Phalle serves as a good meeting point and reference.
Zurich Bahnhof, travellers' nana, "Guardian Angel"
The popular Nana figure weighs 1.2 tons and is 11 metres high. It was offered to the station in 1997 by Securitas to celebrate the 150th birthday of Swiss railways. The tourism office’s “i” is a few metres away.
Three very special treats during the holidays: extraordinary Picasso retrospective, ice skating, the Singing Tree
Passive smoking falls sharply in 7 years
Strong support for smoking bans
Swiss-wide smoking ban - Photo Flickr Hance Gessell
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Twenty-eight percent of German-speaking Swiss smoked in 2009, the latest annual figures from a Swiss public health survey show, against 26 percent in Italian-speaking areas and 25 percent in French-speaking Switzerland. The rate of smoking continues to decline: from 33 to 27 percent from 2001 to 2009.
Passive smoking appears to be falling more dramatically, with 15 percent of the population exposed to other people’s smoke at least seven hours a week last year. The figure was 35 percent in 2002.
Canadian company Bombardier CHF1.86 billion train deal creates Vaud jobs, will ease passenger crunch
New CFF InterCity trains, scheduled for 2013 Geneva-Zurich
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The good news is that train travel in Switzerland is about to get better, but the bad news is that it won’t happen fast enough to suit many impatient Swiss, who travel on average 2,422 km a year by train, making them the world leaders in train use.
The CFF Swiss rail company has just bought 59 new trains with the first rollout in 2013. The purchase of 36,000 new train seats is just a start: in the next 20 years the CFF will need to replace 120,000 seats and add an additional 60,000 because of growing passenger demand and new lines.
Bombardier, a Canadian company, fought off Siemens and Stadler Rail to get a CHF1.9 billion contract with the CFF to supply 59 new double-decker trains. The contract could lead to the purchase at a later date of an additional 100 trains, for a total package worth close to CHF6b.
Passengers to see tangible benefits
For travelers, the new cars will offer a number of advantages: electric plugs and Internet for all passengers, the cars at the front and back of the train will have extra doors, to speed up passsenger movement, first and second class will be completely separated, not the case with at least one of the other offers, according to Le Temps.
The trains will carry 1,300 instead of the 1,100 currently handled by InterCity trains. The extra 200 passengers will be accommodated even with more comfortable stairs which will have a different shape to those in today’s trains, but the seats will have the same space and distance as in the IC2000 trains currently running.
Update 18 November Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Anne-Sophie Pic, head chef at the Beau-Rivage Palace Hotel in Lausanne, has been given a prestigious second star by French-based Michelin Red Guides, whose new guide to Switzerland comes out 19 November. The Beau-Rivage is one of only thirteen 2-star restaurants in Switzerland. Pic leads the way for the Lake Geneva region, which continues to boast two of Switzerland’s three three-star restaurants, Philippe Rochat in Crissier, canton Vaud and Le Pont de Brent in Montreux, Vaud.
Swiss restaurants have a total of 101 stars, making it the country with the highest number of starred restaurants per inhabitant.
Michelin’s new guide to Tokyo is also out (it goes on sale in Europe only in February 2010). The city now has the highest number of 3-star restaurants in the world, with three. It also has more stars than any other city, 261, and Michelin refers to it as “world leader in gourmet dining.”
Two other restaurants which currently have one star are in line to receive a second star: Auberge de Floris in Anières, canton Geneva and Homann’s Restaurant in Samnaun, canton Graubuenden.
Michelin gave new single stars to three restaurants in Geneva, awarding them to chefs:
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – GaultMillau has awarded its coveted title of Swiss chef of the year 2010 to Andreas Caminada, the second time the chef has been given this distinction. Caminada tends the stoves at Schloss Schauenstein in Fuerstenau, Graubuenden, which has 19 points. He won the title in 2008 as well.
GaultMillau includes 816 restaurants in its 2010 Swiss guide, none of which have 20 points, but eight of which have 19 (five are in French-speaking Switzerland). The promising young chef of the year for French-speaking Switzerland is Pierrick Suter at the Hôtel de la Gare in Lucens, Vaud.
Links to other sites: Lake Geneva region tourism office, GaultMillau and Michelin restaurants list
No more of this in Vaud's restaurants
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Canton Vaud’s no-smoking law comes into effect today 15 September, and smokers will not be allowed to smoke in public places like restaurants, bars and cafés. Restaurants may install a smoking area, but patrons cannot be served there by staff. GastroVaud, which represents 1,650 of the canton’s eating establishments has said it will analyze the effect of the ban on its members in a year’s time.
Related: 24heures
Valais, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Valais becomes a no-smoking, at least in public, canton Wednesday 1 July. Cafe and rstaurant owners, who vehemently opposed the move, are coming around to the idea, says their representative association. Gastrovalais says that 60 percent of restaurant and cafe owners now support the change in the law but more out of resignation than conviction. Eighty percent of the group, which fought to keep the law from being passed, was originally opposed to the change.
Background on smoking bans in Switzerland: “No smoke without fire in Neuchatel”, 16 June 2009, GenevaLunch
Related: Le Nouvelliste, Fre
© 2007 Vivre sans Fumer
Neuchatel, Switzerland (24 heures, Fre) – Smokers have invaded the streets outside bars and restaurants since the canton of Neuchatel banned smoking in all public places 1 April 2009. Smokers are unhappy. Some restaurant-owners too, reports 24 heures, although owners the newspaper spoke to say their complaints are tempered by the realization that some clients now stay longer after their meal, or come with the family. Bars and discotheques generally have nothing nice to say about the new law, reports 24 heures, and their neighbours complain that customers go onto the street to smoke, leave cigarette butts lying around and annoy the neighbours at night.
Making prices crystal clear
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The hotel and restaurant industry in Switzerland is under pressure from the Swiss Federal Department of Finance to conform to newly published federal ordinance that covers room and food advertising and pricing. The ministry argues that transparent prices and the ability to compare prices are two essential ingredients in a market economy. Tourism is one of the country’s largest industries, with domestic and foreign tourists spending nearly CHF 21 billion (2004, latest figures).
The pricing regulations (pdf, Fre) include such details as ice cream with cream as an option: the cream should be priced separately. For lodging, the ordinance gives hotels this example:
price per night, breakfast included, sales tax and tourism tax, CHF120.00 (also includes the City Card with a value of CHF6.00, valid for all forms of public transportation).
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland’s gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.8 percent in the first three months of 2009 compared to the last quarter of 2008. The drop was 2.4 percent compared to the same period in 2008. Foreign trade was the main culprit, says the federal government: exports of goods fells by 6.6 percent and of services by 2.3 percent.
Geneva, Switzerland (Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – The Geneva medical doctors association, unhappy with the federal court ruling that struck down a Geneva no-smoking law, has decided to actively promote cafes and restaurants that remain smoke free.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Media in the Lake Geneva region have all picked up the ATS story Tuesday morning about the latest star on the culinary circuit, Dominique Gauthier, age 41, named “cuisinier de l’année 2009″ (chef of the year) by the Gault Millau guide. The 2009 guide came out Saturday.
Bern, Switzerland (Tribune de Geneve, Fre) – The political fight over allowing smoking in public is not likely to be resolved soon in Switzerland. Read more…
