Maggi Payne

Maggi ( or ) is an international brand of seasonings, instant soups, and noodles that originated in Switzerland in the late 19th century. The Maggi company was acquired by Nestlé in 1947.

History

Early history

Julius Maggi (1846–1912) took over his father's mill business in Kemptthal, Switzerland, in 1869. Under his leadership, the business developed into one of the pioneers of industrial food production with the aim of improving the diet of working-class families through better nutrient supply and faster preparation.

In 1882, at a meeting of the Swiss “Non-Profit Society”, the doctor and factory inspector Fridolin Schuler spoke about the miserable nutritional situation of the factory workers: women workers no longer had enough time to cook for their families, cold meals or alcohol often replaced warm meals; meals were served in factory canteens and were cheap but not sufficiently nutritious. The consequences were malnutrition, stomach diseases and high infant mortality. Schuler advocated high-protein, easily digestible pulses/legumes. He demanded they should be offered to the working class in a convenient form for quick preparation and at a cheap price. The society turned to the Maggi company, among others.

Julius Maggi experimented for two years with different methods of mechanical and chemical processing of legumes and different mixtures. The results were presented to the representatives of the society on November 19, 1884. They approved the results and signed a contract to exclusively recommend Maggis legumes for a period of three years. Maggi in turn guaranteed a fixed price and regular product controls for sales in Switzerland. However, great success did not follow. The society was accused of representing the interests of a private company. The Maggi company, on the other hand, had difficulties challenging other suppliers of soup flour on the market, despite the support of the society.

Since 1884, Maggi has been offering flour made from protein-rich legumes, which can be cooked quickly by being roasted beforehand. Maggi was the first to bring protein-rich legume meals to the market, and followed up with a ready-made soup based on legume meals in 1886. After that Julius Maggi introduced bouillon concentrates, first in capsules, then in cubes. In 1897, Julius Maggi founded the company Maggi GmbH in Singen, Germany.

Expansion

From 1885 he brought nine industrially produced types of legume flour onto the market. At the Swiss Culinary Art Exhibition in Zurich in 1885 he received the "First Class Diploma". In 1886, the first instant soups based on legume flour and Maggi seasoning followed as competition for the meat extract invented by Justus von Liebig. The first warehouses and branches abroad were founded, including in Singen in Baden in 1887. In order to obtain additional capital for the planned further expansion, the company was converted into a public limited company in 1889 with Julius Maggi as general director. In 1908 Maggi brought the bouillon cube onto the market.

Maggi introduced extensive social benefits that were unusual for the time, such as a canteen, workers' housing, company health insurance, widow's and old-age pensions, and in 1906 Saturdays off. In a strike at the Singen plant in 1907, Julius Maggi successfully mediated, accused the management of having lost "contact with the workforce" and suggested the establishment of a "workers' committee", an early form of the works council. In 1912 Maggi Singen signed the first collective agreement in the German food industry.

Company founder Julius Maggi lived mainly in Paris from 1902 and led the company to great success with new products in France. The sales of pasteurized milk by the "Société laitière Maggi" amounted to 60 million liters in 1912, and the sales of bouillon cubes with the name KUB amounted to 6 million units a month in 1912.

Shortly after Julius Maggi's death in 1912, the company was converted into a holding company, the Allgemeine MAGGI-Gesellschaft.

Recent history

In 1947, following several changes in ownership and corporate structure, Maggi's holding company merged with the Nestlé company to form Nestlé-Alimentana S.A., currently known in its francophone home base as Nestlé S.A.

By 2020, as part of the Simply Good initiative, the domestic Maggi range is to be geared more towards well-known and healthier ingredients and the salt content to be reduced.

Products

Image:Maggiwürze-alt.jpg, Maggi Seasoning sauce (replica of a historic bottle)
Image:Maggiwürze-neu.jpg, A bottle of Maggi sauce in 2006
Image:Brühwürfel-1.jpg, Bouillon cubes

Cube

The bouillon cube or ''Maggi cube'' is a meat substitute product that was introduced in 1908.

In Germany, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Bénin, Gambia, Sénégal, Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Niger

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