Henniez (mineral water)
| Sources Minérales Henniez SA
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Corporation |
| ISIN | CH0002345251 |
| founding | 1905 |
| resolution | December 2008 (by merger ) |
| Seat | Henniez , Switzerland |
| management | Nicolas Rouge ( CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors ) |
| Number of employees | 270 (2006) |
| sales | 152 million CHF (2006) |
| Branch | beverages |
| Website | www.henniez.ch |
Henniez is since 2007 the Swiss food company Nestle owned mineral water - and beverage brand , which until then was for three generations majority family ownership ( Sources Minérales Henniez SA ).
Henniez source
The spring is located in the town of the same name in the canton of Vaud and has been used industrially since 1905. It was discovered during the Roman occupation of Helvetia around 200 AD . The Romans conducted the spring water in aqueducts to bathing establishments in what is now Avenches , the then capital of Roman Switzerland. With the fall of the Roman Empire, the management of the springs ended and the thermal baths disappeared.
In the 17th century, bathing was resumed and in 1688 the Hôtel des Bains was built near the springs . In 1880 Virgile Borel from Neuchâtel took over management of the baths. An analysis of the water commissioned by him showed positive properties, which opened the way for marketing as mineral water and the place as a recreation area.
Henniez Group
history
In 1905, with the establishment of the Société des Bains et Eaux d'Henniez and the commissioning of the first bottling plant, industrial production began. The water was initially sold as a medicine in pharmacies . In 1913 the company was transformed into Henniez Lithinée SA .
Under the management of Henri Pahud , who headed the family business for almost fifty years from 1916, a cooperation agreement was signed with Mineralquellen Eglisau in 1928 , making Henniez Lithinée the first Swiss mineral water to be distributed throughout the Swiss market.
While the baths were closed in 1930, Henniez Lithinée received competition from a local entrepreneur. He bought a spring from Henniez, founded the Henniez Santé company and benefited from the popularity of the Henniez name. This led to a legal battle that lasted for decades and ended only in 1978.
With the economic upswing after the Second World War , consumer behavior changed and with it the market presence of Henniez, who mutated from medicinal products to table water . With Edgar Rouge , grandson of Henri Pahud, the second generation joined the family business in 1948. Rouge concentrated in particular on the new production techniques that could cope with the rapidly increasing demand.
In 1964, Rouge took over the management of the company from his uncle and continued to expand his leading position in the Swiss market in the following years. In 1972, the collaboration with Mineralquellen Eglisau was ended and our own sales network was set up for the German-speaking Swiss market. After Henniez already had a carbonated and a still mineral water, in 1974 it introduced Henniez green, a slightly carbonated mineral water. This gave rise to the color code that is still known today: red for “highly carbonated”, blue for “non-carbonated” and green for “slightly carbonated”.
In 1978 Henniez Lithinée took over the competitor Henniez Santé, which brought the legal disputes that had been going on since 1930 to a definite end. Associated with this was the renaming to Sources Minérales Henniez SA. In 1991, Sources Minérales Henniez created a 250 hectare nature park in the area around the source and planted a total of 70,000 trees there over the years. In 2000 Edgar Rouge left the family business to his sons Nicolas and Pascal.
Takeover by Nestlé
In September 2007, the Rouge family sold their 61.66 percent stake in Nestlé. As a result, Nestlé also took over the remaining shares in free float . Finally, the shares of Sources Minérales Henniez were delisted on July 8, 2008 and the company merged with Nestlé Waters (Suisse) SA in December 2008 . With the takeover, in addition to the company, the Quelle and the Henniez brand, the Cristalp brand, introduced in 1990, as well as the brands produced under license such as the fruit juices Granini and Hohes C as well as Virgin Cola passed into the ownership of Nestlé.
In its last financial year as an independent company, Henniez employed 270 people and generated sales of 152 million Swiss francs.
In February 2020 it became known that the PET bottles - instead of the previous 30% - are now made from 75% recycled PET (rPET).
Web links
- Henniez's website
- Gilbert Marion: Pahud, Henri. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Valérie Favez: Henniez. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
Individual evidence
- ↑ La Gruyère from May 3, 2005 on the 100th anniversary of the Henniez mineral water ( Memento of the original from March 2, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) 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.
- ↑ Schweizerisches Handelsamtsblatt, December 18, 2008 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Nestlé, press release of September 6, 2007
- ↑ Henniez bottles now made from 75 percent recycled PET. In: foodaktuell.ch. February 7, 2020, accessed February 9, 2020 .
