Migros to cut many of its own-brand products in packaging shakeup

Your favourite own-brand Migros product might soon disappear from the shelves, after the supermarket chain announced that it was cutting back on its product range and rebranding many more products. 

Migros to cut 80 own-brand product ranges including M-Budget

Migros announced on Monday via its magazine that it plans to streamline its own-brand product ranges. Of the 250 different product ranges sold in its stores, 80 are set to be cut, including the high-protein “Oh!” brand, oil brand “Alexis”, frozen product brand “J-Banks”, and many more. Many “M-Classic” and “M-Budget” products will also be renamed. 

Instead, a new “Migros” umbrella brand will be created that will cover a range of different products and is designed to be a strong, trustworthy label that will function as a “seal of quality”. 

According to Migros Marketing Director Rémy Müller, the multitude of different “brands” within the supermarket’s own-brand product range is superfluous; many customers don’t even recognise the brand or understand that the product is made by Migros. “I'm convinced that even the most loyal Migros customers couldn't even name 50 of our own brands,” he told 20 Minuten, adding that the new, unified “Migros” packaging would be clearer.

Streamlining the range and rebranding the products under a single brand will also help to save Migros money that can then be invested in improving the quality of the products in the range. 

Products with new packaging will be marked with stickers

It might take some time for shoppers to get used to the products’ new look, but Migros has assured customers that it would provide “close support”, for instance by putting a sticker on products whose new packaging looks markedly different from the old one. 

Müller also emphasised that it was just the outside of the products that was changing: “This is a packaging change; the contents remain unchanged, as does the price.” 

Some changes have already been made, which you may have noticed, and more are set to come this year. Migros says it plans to convert thousands of products over the course of this year, but according to Müller it will be a good two years before all of the old packaging finally disappears from the shelves.