Wheat

As Braudel points it out in the Structrues of Everyday Life, «As soon as one looks at the question of grain, one realizes what a complicated phenomenon it is.»(1)

The journey of grain, reveals fundamental meachnisms of foodsystems. Switzerlands grain is not only produced on Swiss fields, the dependency on the global market with as 40% selfsufficency rate in plant based products is striking. (2) The global grain market is listed on the stock exchange and dominated by 4 main companies.

«The world of agricultural commodity trading firms has changed over the years, although corporate concentration has long been a defining feature of this sector. The four dominant agricultural trading firms—the ABCDs (ADM, Bunge, Cargill and Louis-Dreyfus)—have a long history dating back to the 1800s and early 1900s.» (3)

In Zurich, the presence of wheat is omnipresent. The world‘s largest granary stands in the middle of the city and shapes the cityscape to the landscape.(4) The Kornhaus Zurich has moved down along the Limmat and stopped at the Letten Viaduct. Today Swissmill processes around 30 percent of the grain needed for food in Switzerland.(5)

In addition to industrial bakeries such as the MacDonalds supplier Fortisa AG in Zuchwil, Swissmill supplies the Coop bakery in Schaffisheim.

As Roman Hollenstein points out in an Interview «Today‘s model looks different: Production is centralised on a large scale, while sales take place in branch stores.»(6)

The Walter Buchmann bakery, founded in 1909, traces the development of deslocalisation of production locations. In the middle of the 20th century, it moved from Zelgstrasse in the centre to Uetlibergstrasse in the Binz. Today the the production factory at the motorway junction in Brütiselen for 12 branch stores in the city center.(7)

(1) - Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Volume I: The Structure of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible, 109.
(2) - Agrarbericht 2020, BWL Bundesamt für wirtschaftliche Landesversorgung https://www.agrarbericht.ch/de/markt/marktentwicklungen/selbstversorgungsgrad (visited 10.04.2020)
(3) - ABCD and beyond: From grain merchants to agricultural value chain managers Jennifer Clapp, in Canadian Food Studies / La Revue canadienne des études sur l alimentation · September 2015
(4) - Roman Hollenstein, NZZ, Der Campanile an der Limmat polarisiert, 02.05.2016, https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/kunst_architektur/ld.17555?reduced=true (visited 09.04.2020) Swissmill, Die Schweizer Getreidemühle, https://www.swissmill.ch/muehlenportrait (visited 10.04.2020)
(5) - Michael von Ledebur, NZZ, 04.12.19, Bäcker verschenkt Betrieb, um ihn zu retten https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/zuerich-oski-gehoert-zu-den-letzten-richtigen-baeckereien-ld.1523491?reduced=true (visited 03.04.2020)
(6) - Das ist Zürichs neuer Bäckerkönig, Hannes Weber, 2020, https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/das-ist-zuerichs-neuer-baeckerkoenig-369111611950 (visited 10.04.2020)

images
1 - BSV, Based on LBW, Bundesamt für Landwirtschaft BLW
2 - Swissem, https://www.swissgranum.ch/documents/741931/769804/Jahresbericht_2019-20_D.pdf/02efaa2b-fe84-5902-d76a-855d3ff62503
3 - BLW Fachbereich Marktanalyse BLW, https://www.blw.admin.ch/blw/de/home/markt/marktbeobachtung/brot-und-getreide.html
4 - ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Ans\_02173, ca. 1893, http://doi.org/10.3932/ethz-a-000015367
5 - Swissmill silo, Harder Haas Partner, Eglisau https://www.baunetzwissen.de/beton/objekte/industrie-gewerbe/kornhaus-zuerich-4929382
6 - Lebensmittelverein Zürich (LVZ), Sozarch_F_5033-Fc-0001, https://data.stadt-zuerich.ch/dataset/sozialarchiv-lvz
7 - Schweizer Brot, Industrielle Brot Produktion in der Fortisa AG | Hamburger Buns für McDonalds, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9_fkz7Dppo
8 - Fortisa AG, https://www.fortisa.ch
9 - Swiss Bread Forms, https://schweizerbrot.ch/app/uploads/2017/10/Druckversion_MS.pdf
10 - Laderampe Uetlibergstrasse - Binz, Archiv Walter Buchmann, https://www.walterbuchmann.ch/seit1909
11 - BSV, based on Open Data Zürich
12 - ZVG, Groba Bäckerei, https://www.foodaktuell.ch/2018/08/29/grossbaeckerei-baut-60-stellen-ab/