Julius Meinl

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under Julius Meinl (disambiguation) .

Julius Meinl AG
legal form	Corporation
founding	1862
Seat	Vienna
management	Julius Meinl V.
Number of employees	750 (2017)
sales	172 million euros (2017)
Branch	coffee
Website	www.meinl.at

The factory in Ottakring (around 1900)

Branch "Julius Meinl Kaffee-Magazin", Vienna-Margareten (before 1939)

The Austrian company Julius Meinl AG emerged from the spice shop founded by Julius Meinl I in Vienna ( 1st district , meat market ) in 1862 , which initially only offered green coffee beans , later also freshly roasted coffee . Her trademark was the Meinl- Mohr designed by Joseph Binder , a black children's head with a high red fez on a yellow background, which was redesigned in 2004.

history

In the Austro-Hungarian monarchy , the company became a leader in its sector. Even after the First World War, the freshly roasted coffee business flourished, so that Julius Meinl II. Had more than 1,000 branches throughout Europe in 1939, in which other foods of above-average quality were also sold. As early as 1927, the company received the state award and thus the right to use the federal coat of arms in business dealings. Due to the Second World War , only the Austrian shops and roasters remained. At the end of the 1960s Meinl had 280 branches. In addition, at the end of the 1960s there were 78 branches of the Brothers Kunz company , which was founded in Vienna-Heiligenstadt as a coffee roasting and winery in 1889 and which acted as an umbrella brand in the low-price segment of the food trade in the coffee sector .

New Year's wishes from Julius Meinl at the turn of the year 1925/26, advertising in the Bozener Volksblatt

Socio-political measures worth mentioning are the introduction of Sunday rest in 1907 and the 5-day week with 43 hours per week in 1931.

The hypermarket chain PAM PAM also belonged to the Julius Meinl Group until 1999 . It was brought into being by Jenö Eisenberger , the founder of the LÖWA chain, and then sold to Meinl in 1974. The first PAM-PAM store was the one on Kreilplatz in the 19th district. The next markets arose in Siebenbrunnengasse and Sandleitengasse. Until 1998 Pam Pam had 41 locations, of which around 20 were in Vienna. The rest was spread across the rest of the federal states.

Realignment

High losses in the food retail sector ultimately led Meinl to withdraw from this business area with the Julius Meinl, Pampam and Jééé-Discount brands. In the spring of 1999, the central and western Austrian locations were initially sold to Billa ( Rewe Group ); in May the markets in Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland went to Spar . The branches in Hungary (1999 to Delhaize ), the Czech Republic (2005 to Ahold , meanwhile merged with Delhaize to Ahold Delhaize ) and Poland (2005 to Tesco ) were closed. Today the company is concentrating again on the original coffee business and operates a roastery in Ottakring at Julius-Meinl-Gasse 3–7. The headquarters is also located there. Only the main Viennese branch Meinl am Graben , which opened in 1950 , continues to be operated as a flagship store (see below). Since 2002 are Chicago a coffee ( Coffee House ) and now also two coffee bars operated.

Meinl am Graben

→ Main article : Julius Meinl am Graben

Meinl am Graben in Vienna

The well-known Viennese branch Am Graben 19 (entrance Graben 20) was renovated and enlarged in 1999 and is run as a delicatessen store Meinl am Graben . This branch is very popular with tourists. International products from the tea, coffee, jam, confectionery, wine and spirits sectors are particularly well represented in the range. In addition to a selection of fresh foods, various self-made products are also offered.

The restaurant operated on the first floor of the Graben 20 building was awarded three toques by Gault Millau in 2004. Metin Yurtseven has been Chef de Cuisine in the renowned restaurant since March 2010 and was awarded his first Gault Millau toque in 2012.

logo

Historic Meinl logo (before 2004)

The original logo showed a sailed merchant ship on waves in a horizontal oval. It was replaced in 1924 by a black boy with a red fez , designed by the Viennese graphic artist Joseph Binder , who refers to the history of Viennese coffee culture : Coffee reached Vienna after the siege by the Ottoman Empire , in which African slaves were again used for service. The logo, similar to the Mohr von Sarotti , had a strong recognition value for the company and is shown on almost every Meinl product and branch. Over the years the Meinl-Mohr has undergone various changes, but its core component has remained for a long time. In 2004, designer Matteo Thun revised the logo by replacing it with a red silhouette of the boy and making him look upright.

In 2007, the Mein Julius initiative converted an outdated version of the logo into a protest sign to demonstrate against racist clichés and misinterpretations of Africa and the colonial era. However, the initiative uses a logo from before 2004 and not the revised version from 2004, as this would no longer have been suitable for the graphic representation of the protest and the racism cliché. The initiative also does not indicate that it is using an outdated logo or that Meinl had revised the logo in order to no longer promote the racist clichés, which in turn allows criticism of the initiative.

literature

• Oliver Kühschelm: Julius Meinl. Patriarchal, (big) bourgeois, Austria-conscious . In: Emil Brix , Ernst Bruckmüller , Hannes Stekl (eds.): Memoria Austriae III. Entrepreneurs, companies, products . Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7028-0419-6 , pp. 43–97.
• Margaretha Lehrbaumer: What can I serve with? Julius Meinl - On the trail of a great brand . Pichler Verlag, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-85431-164-8 .
• Peter Pirker : Exile Political Pages of Julius Meinl AG, in: Ursula Seeber, Veronika Zwerger, Claus-Dieter Krohn (eds.): " Comet of Money": Economy and Exile. Series: Exilforschung, 33rd edition text + kritik , Munich 2015, ISBN 3-86916-451-4

Web links

Commons : Julius Meinl  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Julius Meinl's website
• Meinl am Graben website
• The legendary Mohr hangs in the air , Wiener Zeitung , September 13, 2007 (accessed November 22, 2013)
• Entry on Julius Meinl in the Austria Forum  (in the AEIOU Austria Lexicon )
• schlot.at : Julius Meinl - historical views and documents
• Early documents and newspaper articles on the Brothers Kunz AG in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Story by Julius Meinl. Julius Meinl, accessed April 19, 2018 . 
2. ↑ 80 years of Julius Meinl: Viennese flagship company celebrates. City hall correspondence of the City of Vienna, May 13, 2004, accessed on August 7, 2015 . 
3. ↑ Locations - Meinl US. (No longer available online.) Julius Meinl, archived from the original on September 24, 2017 ; accessed on April 19, 2018 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Elisabeth Kimmerle: What is the secret behind the Afro-Turks? Die WELT, accessed on June 24, 2020 . 
5. ^ Julius Meinl: Company History , accessed on January 28, 2017
6. ↑ site My Julius Logo criticism
7. ↑ Meinl-Mohr - Symbol of Racism? Die Presse December 17, 2007, accessed April 12, 2015