Mr Schmid, you have …
Mr Schmid sounds weird. I’m a marmot, all of us here say that to me. Schmid’s 2000 times in Frutigen, but only a man says marmot.
Where you kill marmots, in order to produce your ointments.
just don’t. Personally, I have shot in my entire life, only two marmot. And the other will not be killed because of our anointing, but because the stock needs to be regulated. We use the fat of dead animals, as it contains a cortisone-like substances and thereby alleviating pain acts.
you are a trained auto mechanic. How were you to the manufacturer of Groundhog albums and herbal oils?
I was 24 years in the same company, for a long time as a hydraulics mechanic for the last eight years as head of the Assembly. As the three owners, who were great chiefs, sold the company, deterioration in the work climate. This helped me in my decision to make my Hobby my profession. As a hunter I have had has always paid attention to the fact, as much as possible to dispose of the captured animals. My father, who suffered from rheumatism, was silent for a fat swore on Marmot. I began to sell the fat in small doses to the hunter’s exhibitions and markets. In 1992, I got to know on the fur market in Thun, a herbal specialist. Thanks to his skills, I managed to mix first of all, a warming and a cooling ointment with all-natural ingredients.
they Were taken seriously, as they sat in 1998 on the marmot products?
no, it’s in your own house, it was against the wind – my wife thought it was risky, the Angestelltenjob to give up for this adventure. I don’t let myself be swayed but. I guess I’m a weirdo: If I want to do something, then I’ll go through with it. I exhibited as an Exotic in many fairs, was ridiculed by some as old-fashioned or hillbilly. In 1992, in the first year, I sold 228 boxes of the ointment I had produced using a Glühweintopfs in the kitchen of his parents ‘ house. In 1997, the year before the step into self-employment, there were 4390 doses – the production was moved to the cowshed. Soon I was at 100 days per year, as exhibitors and traders at fairs in the whole of Switzerland on the way.
This should have calmed your wife.
it has been tackled very soon and will be much in the Background helped. And then my sons came fortunately to the taste. As a Reto motivation problems, had said in his work on a Bank, and I to him immediately, he could help me – I can expect neither good writing nor good. Silvan graduated from the higher school of Economics, and wrote in the context of this training a business plan to operating our family. Thanks to this work, I realized really what I had built here and what it took to be able to the further growth of cope. To me, it was clear that this would exceed my skills. Therefore, I was very pleased, as I the company, three of my sons failed to pass.
it Was not difficult to suddenly decide you no longer want?
I have several times seen how family businesses perish because the Old thinks he knows everything better. I gave the responsibility. If you ask me, I say my opinion, otherwise I may work on here and have my freedom. In particular, I am grateful that the sons run the business. I still remember how Silvan in a school essay he has posted he would rather have a Bank Manager as a father, as a representative of the sold in the market is its ointments. Now the sons of working with joy here, although there are to do no less and the wages are significantly lower than in the Bank. But here you can decide, design, with natural products, something meaningful effect. And we are already the number 1 in Switzerland, will soon have 16 employees and over 6 tons to sell our Groundhog albums in tens of thousands of doses per year.
Silvan Schmid was ashamed as a child that his father drove with ointments on the market. Today, he leads the company Puralpina in the second Generation. Photo: PD
when to the Swiss marmot fat is to you?
In Switzerland, around shot 5000 marmots per year. We currently process the fat of 1500 groundhogs to Oil, since there are still air upward. This year, we had a luxury problem: Us, the deer and Gamsfett went out for a short time, we are the ointments with as a natural binder. This has to do especially with the enormous increase in the demand for foreign customers. In Interlaken and Lucerne, two Chinese cosmetics store recorded owner to the range. The ointments and massage oils are selling like crazy. The mixture of Swissness, natural ingredients, and the Groundhog as a likeable character, has a strong charisma. I’ve already seen it six years ago, when I sold my place in Zermatt in front of the drugstore in a of our ointments.
they Were mobbed by Asian tourists?
I can, of course, was neither Japanese nor Chinese and not English. But because I had a stuffed marmot and they all wanted to make a Selfie so that I sold in a day products for more than 1000 francs. I treated myself to an Overnight stay in a Hotel, and hung the same day. Only later did I learn that I would have needed a permit. Now we are – thanks to my sons – something more structured approached, and will open in mid-December a Shop of his own in Zermatt. More and more often, customers will not visit us in the Shop, because buying it only products, but also to see stuffed animals. We have become a very popular trip destination in combination with a visit to the Blausee. (looks at the clock) And now I have to go gradually, today I’m in the foreign service and deliver goods to Lucerne and Chur. For me, this is fortunately not a work, but a mix of leisure and therapy.
contact and information: www.puralpina.ch or kontakt@puralpina.ch
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Created: 29.11.2019, 14:31 PM
