Fenaco

Fenaco is an agricultural cooperative federation in Switzerland, headquartered in Bern. Fenaco is an acronym of its French name fédération nationale des coopératives agricoles. Members of the federation are 137 agricultural cooperatives trading under the name Landi as well as some others. This makes Fenaco indirectly owned by the around 40,000 members of the Landi cooperatives, 23,000 of them being active farmers.

Activity

Fenaco is active in providing products and services to farmers as well as in processing and marketing farmers' products in its retail chains. According to a 2005 article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Fenaco has a "dominant role in many agricultural sectors".[1] In 2009, it was placed on position 172 of the Deloitte list of the world's largest 250 producers of consumer goods, although it operates only in Switzerland.[2]

Enterprises or labels of Fenaco are the beverage company Ramseier Suisse, meat producer Ernst Sutter AG, food producer Frigemo, the retailers Volg (small supermarkets) and Landi, fertiliser retailer Landor, animal feed producer UFA AG, and mineral oil company Agrola.[3]

History

Switzerland was considered a crop producing country until the 1880s. This changed with Switzerland's construction of the railway. With the help of the new means of transport, cheap grain could be imported. Out of necessity, agricultural cooperatives were founded as self-help organizations for farmers.[23] Fenaco was founded in 1993 as a merger of six existing agricultural cooperative federations with roots in the late 19th century:[24][25]

Willy Gehriger, who was awarded the Agro-Star Suisse in 2013, played a key role in the merger. Gehriger was head of Fenaco from 2002 to 2012.[26] Previously, co-founder Ulrich Schlup was the first chairman of the management board.[27] Martin Keller has held the position since 2012.[28]

In 1995, the Cisag S.A. in Cressier, NE was taken over.[29] In 2001, the first gas station store was opened under the brand name TopShop.[30]

Since 2015, Fenaco has been operating the German-Swiss logistics center LahrLogistics in Lahr in a joint venture with ZG Raiffeisen.[31] In 2018, Lonza stopped producing nitrogen fertilizer at its Visp site.[32] The joint venture between Lonza and Fenaco, known as Agroline AG, was then dissolved.[33] Landor AG was also dissolved and now serves as a private label for fertilizer products.[33] In the same year, in the port of Muttenz, where, among other things, 100 to 200 thousand tons of fertilizer are unloaded each year,[34] a silo system for grain was put into operation, which also served as a mandatory storage facility.[35] In 2023, David Käser, who has been working at Fenaco since 2001, took over management of the Landi division.[36]

Fenaco is a member of the Swiss Farmers' Association and is represented on the board by Fenaco board president Pierre-André Geiser.[38][39]

Union des coopératives agricoles romandes UCAR

Association of agricultural cooperatives of the Canton of Friborg (French Fédération des coopératives agricoles du Canton de Fribourg, FCA), based in Fribourg

Association of agricultural cooperatives of Bern and neighboring cantons, VLG Bern, based in Bern

Northwest Association of Agricultural Cooperatives NWV /Association of Agricultural Cooperatives of Northwestern Switzerland (VLGN), based in Solothurn

Association of Agricultural Cooperatives of Central Switzerland (VLGZ), based in Sursee

Association of Eastern Swiss agricultural cooperatives (VOLG), based in Winterthur

type	Cooperative Federation
foundation	1993
location city	Bern
location country	Switzerland
key people	• Michael Feitknecht, CEO • Pierre-André Geiser (President of the Board of Directors)
area served	Switzerland
industry	Agricultural products, farming supplies, retail
revenue	7.3 billion Swiss francs (2024)
members	137 cooperatives
num employees	11367 (2024)
homepage	fenaco.com

Activity

History

Sales development

Miscellaneous

External links

References