In 13 years, the trained butcher has focused the largest Swiss meat processor more on convenience, sandwiches and salads. The outgoing CEO still sees deficits in meat substitute products and says when he expects laboratory meat to be part of everyday life.
Mr. Wyss, what was the image of butchers when you did your apprenticeship 50 years ago?
Even back then, you couldn’t score points with your career with girls. Finding a girlfriend as an aspiring butcher wasn’t easy. This applied to the agglomeration of Basel, where I grew up. Maybe things were a little different in the Emmental. There used to be two respected people in a village: the priest and the butcher.
And today?
On social networks, boys are taught what is popular: the optimal weight, the right clothes, the perfect car accessories – otherwise you are nobody. Such an environment does not help to find apprentices. We actually need twice as many apprentice butchers as we currently have.
What are you doing about it?
We need to communicate better that becoming a butcher is an apprenticeship with opportunities for advancement – as was the case with me or with Coop boss Philipp Wyss, who also completed an apprenticeship as a butcher. Especially for management functions, we need specialists with an understanding of the overall process. I also think we should pay apprentices a decent wage during their training.
It hardly helps that meat consumption is criticized. There is a lot of talk and writing about vegetarians and vegans. Is this a media phenomenon or a real trend?
The change is noticeable – but not as strong as some people think or perhaps wish. Completely abstaining from meat is a niche phenomenon; only 5 percent of the population in Switzerland never eats meat. But meat consumption per capita is declining and is expected to continue to decline. At the same time, however, the absolute amount of meat sold is increasing due to the growing population. As long as growth remains high, absolute meat consumption will also increase.
You were Bell’s boss for 13 years. Was it clear to you from the start that the company needed other pillars besides meat?
Absolutely. It would have been naive to just focus on meat and buy another sausage or ham company. Today we have all alternatives in our portfolio. Our subsidiary Green Mountain makes plant-based meat substitute products. We are the largest supplier of seafood in Switzerland. With Hilcona we are strong in convenience such as ready meals and sandwiches, Eisberg supplies salads and Hügli supplies soups and spices. We now make almost 30 percent of our sales with convenience products.
Can you earn more with convenience?
In terms of margin, the convenience range is actually more attractive than meat production. In the meat industry, the margin is generally modest. We try to maintain the margin by, for example, focusing on specialties for the barbecue summer or by automating our processes and optimizing costs. The importance remains, but the ratio of meat products to Bell Food Group’s total sales will continue to decline over time.
Heavyweight in the Coop universe
dba. When he took over as head of Bell in 2011, Lorenz Wyss also brought the “Coop spirit” into the company. The retailer is the majority shareholder of the listed meat processor with a 69.12 percent stake. At Coop, the trained butcher Wyss was head of category management for fresh products and in procurement. Under Wyss, sales of the group, which is now officially called the Bell Food Group, rose to 4.5 billion francs, also thanks to acquisitions such as Hilcona, Eisberg and Hügli. Bell generates almost half of its sales with the Coop Group (including Transgourmet). The company employs over 13,000 people. On June 1st, the 65-year-old will hand over the job of CEO to Marco Tschanz, currently CFO at Bell.
Will plant-based meat substitutes ever establish themselves in the mass market?
We still have three problems here: taste, naturalness and price. Firstly, a product has no future if consumers have to compromise on taste. Plant-based burgers may taste “okay” today – but they need a “wow” when you bite into them. The second catch is the naturalness. Meat substitute products have too many E numbers on the ingredient list, so people rightly wonder whether the original isn’t healthier. Thirdly, meat substitute products are still too expensive. But if at some point they cost half as much as meat and at the same time taste and are natural, this market can grow quickly. We’re not at that point yet, especially when it comes to price. But the industry is working hard on it, including Bell.
Do you eat meat substitute products yourself?
Personally, I really like eating meat, and that won’t change. I fire up the gas grill every other day, regardless of the weather. And if not, I prefer eggplant, broccoli or cauliflower, which are great to prepare. Spaghetti with pesto is also a real alternative.
Perhaps the future belongs to cultured meat grown in laboratories. A few years ago, Bell acquired a stake in the Dutch company Mosa Meat. The announcement was to offer a laboratory meat burger for 10 francs in 2021. How far are you there?
The 10 francs are correct, but the year is not. . . Seriously: If the technology works, it will be a real complement to traditional meat production, and we have to be there. That’s why we got in there. But it’s taking longer than expected. This is the case with everyone in the industry. I think in about three years the cultured meat burger will actually be available for a reasonable price. However, you probably won’t be able to buy the products straight away in the supermarket, but rather in a restaurant. It is possible that at the beginning you will only cultivate individual ingredients for addition, such as fat.
The laboratory meat is arousing resistance – in Italy it is even supposed to be banned as a precautionary measure before it is even on the market. How should these products be regulated?
A clear declaration is important. Consumers need to know that this is cultured meat. Then you can decide for yourself. The state should inform and educate – but nothing more. People have to judge for themselves what is right and what is wrong.
Many people would like to eat more organic meat or other label products for reasons of animal welfare and environmental protection. But that’s expensive. Are the margins on these products too high, as is often criticized?
We sometimes earn less with organic meat than with conventional products. What many people don’t see: When we buy an organic cow or chicken, we often cannot sell the whole animal as organic meat because there is no demand for certain cuts. These pieces have to be devalued in price and sold as conventional goods. The devaluations are a big factor for meat producers, so they have to do a mixed calculation. What also speaks against excessive organic prices: The market share of organic products has been growing for years, both at our main buyer Coop and in the entire Swiss retail trade.
Many farmers complain that they don’t receive enough money for their meat.
In Switzerland we have high costs, but we pay the highest slaughter cattle prices in the world.
There have also been calls for a ban on meat advertising. Are you worried that this will happen one day?
You can ban everything. There are countries that work like this. But usually not for long. If you give people more regulations, you deny them their maturity. Let’s let people decide for themselves! A ban actually means nothing other than: “The citizen is not able to decide for himself.” Unless it is proven that reasonable meat consumption is harmful to health, I don’t see why advertising should be banned.
However, the money for promoting the sale of Swiss meat, which is ultimately financed by the customer and the taxpayer, could be cut.
Such a mechanism exists for all kinds of products, including potatoes or milk. The federal government doubles the amount that farmers and the meat industry pay. In total, that’s just 10 million francs per year – with meat sales of 9 billion francs. It’s not about encouraging consumers to consume more meat, but rather about making them prefer Swiss meat. Meat shopping tourism is back in full swing after a break due to the Covid pandemic.
Bell is aligning its production capacities, such as the new slaughterhouse in Oensingen, to a Switzerland with open borders. Do you want agricultural free trade with the EU?
No, but it would be negligent not to consider this scenario for our large investments that are intended to last 40 years or more.
When would you expect the market to open at the earliest?
It depends on how great the pressure from the EU is. Politically, opening the border would of course have no chance at the moment, but perhaps the situation will look different in ten years.
What would the open borders scenario mean for Bell?
The market would suddenly become much, much larger. We could more easily export specialties from Switzerland: Bündnerfleisch or St. Gallen veal bratwurst, for example. We already export from our foreign locations to 100 countries.
But in such a scenario, the fresh meat for Swiss consumers would only be imported from abroad for cost reasons?
Not necessarily. Even in Austria, not all pork comes from Germany, even though it is cheaper there. But it is clear that the step would be a huge challenge for Swiss agriculture and would require a correspondingly long preparation and a discussion about compensation measures for the farmers.
Bell has invested abroad on a large scale – even under your predecessor. Was it all worth it?
A large part of it would probably no longer be done today. For example, we sold a large part of the German company Zimbo over time. The high expectations that specialties such as a Thuringian bratwurst could be sold on the German market at a reasonable price were far from being met. In the sausage sector, we had a market share of perhaps one percent in Germany. On the other hand, buying the German ham specialist Abraham and focusing on ham were worth it. We have a market share of 20 to 25 percent and can discuss things with retailers on an equal footing.
Bell even had butcher shops in Eastern Europe for a time.
Jesses! Yes, we once had more than 150 branches in the Czech Republic and Hungary, but that became quite difficult. We sold them. Our focus is the DACH region, i.e. Germany, Austria and Switzerland. We want to give it full throttle. A remnant in Eastern Europe is the business in Poland. It’s growing and doing great.
Will your successor ensure a recovery in Bell’s share price? At around 260 francs, the title is currently quite a long way from its high of around 400 francs.
Marco Tschanz will certainly fix that. As a long-time CFO and head of Bell International as well as head of Eisberg, he knows the company very well. The 400 francs were probably a bit high back then. But at the moment the title is completely undervalued. But I personally think 340 francs is more than justified.
What will you actually do when you leave Bell at the end of May?
Then for the first time in my life I am my own boss in my own company, a consulting company in the food sector. And I have more time for motorcycling.
Didn’t you even have a plan to open your own butcher shop?
Yes, I could have taken over a small business. But then I thought to myself: Getting up at six o’clock every day really doesn’t have to be the case anymore!