The story
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. Fenaco was founded in 1993 as a merger of six existing agricultural cooperative federations with roots in the late 19th century:
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
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. Previously, co-founder Ulrich Schlup was the first chairman of the management board. Martin Keller has held the position since 2012.
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In 1995, the Cisag S.A. in Cressier, NE was taken over. In 2001, the first gas station store was opened under the brand name TopShop.
Since 2015, Fenaco has been operating the German-Swiss logistics center LahrLogistics in Lahr in a joint venture with ZG Raiffeisen. In 2018, Lonza stopped producing nitrogen fertilizer at its Visp site. The joint venture between Lonza and Fenaco, known as Agroline AG, was then dissolved. Landor AG was also dissolved and now serves as a private label for fertilizer products. In the same year, in the port of Muttenz, where, among other things, 100 to 200 thousand tons of fertilizer are unloaded each year, a silo system for grain was put into operation, which also served as a mandatory storage facility. In 2023, David Käser, who has been working at Fenaco since 2001, took over management of the Landi division.
Fenaco is a member of the Swiss Farmers' Association and is represented on the board by Fenaco board president Pierre-André Geiser.
From Wikipedia’s article on Fenaco, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4