W. Kündig & Cie AG

The beginning

With companies in Switzerland, Germany, Hungary and a branch in China, the Kündig Group is one of the leading international raw materials specialists. It has almost a century of history behind it. The story begins with Willy Kündig, born in 1896, who, as a young man, after an aborted apprenticeship as a banker, gained the tools for the grain trade and his planned independence at the Zurich company Karr & Lederer (today: Karr AG in Zug), which imported milling and feed grain. During the First World War, Willy Kündig set up his own business in the port of Sète on the French Mediterranean as a goods inspector for goods on their way to Switzerland. Back in Switzerland, he set about founding his own company.

Change of generations

In 1961, the company was transformed from a limited partnership into a public limited company, W. Kündig & Cie AG. Just over a decade later, the company founder passed away at the age of 76. Ferdinand Tobler, a long-time employee and confidant, took over the management of the company in 1972. Ten years later, in 1982, Beat W. Kündig, the founder’s son, born in 1952, joined the family business as a trained grain merchant and took over the management ten years later. He began to diversify the existing product portfolio and established the frozen and dry products divisions in the company alongside the cereals division, whose success was not long in coming. To this end, the company was continuously expanded, especially abroad. Initially, the company added its own companies in Hungary, before expanding into Germany in 1997. in 2003, W. Kündig & Cie AG acquired an initial stake in the BGM Group in Ritschenhausen, Thuringia, and in 2007 the majority stake was acquired. BGM Nahrungsmittel GmbH & Co KG, Europe’s most modern processing center for dried foods, in particular for herbs, spices and mushrooms as well as many other specialties, was renamed Kündig Nahrungsmittel GmbH & Co KG. The associated BioSteril GmbH & Co. KG retained its name. in 2010, Kündig also took over Interoma AG Switzerland. Founded in 1993, the company specializes in the international procurement of raw materials for the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics processing industries.

100 years of Kündig

Over the decades, the small family business founded by Willy Kündig in 1920 has grown into an internationally recognized and successful group of companies. W. Kündig & Cie AG has remained 100 percent owned by the Kündig family to this day. With Marc-Remo Kündig and Sandro Kündig, the third generation is now active in the company. The owners and employees can all be proud of the company’s 100th anniversary.