Swiss company begs forgiveness after putting Hitler image on coffee creamer

A spokesman for supermarket chain Migros said he had no idea how the images got through the company’s quality controls.

Ragan Insider Premium Content
Ragan Insider Content

In PR, there are varying degrees of mistakes. Some, people quickly forget. Others, they remember forever.

Unfortunately for Swiss supermarket chain Migros, accidentally printing the faces of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini on coffee creamer packages may fall into the latter category.

A surprised customer noticed that one of history’s most reviled figures was staring back at him from his creamer package while he drank his coffee at the train station in Baden. He snapped a photo of it and sent it to the free, German-language newspaper 20 Minutes.

In a New York Times report, Migros spokesman Tristan Cerf called the whole thing an “unforgivable incident.” Migros removed about 2,000 creamer packages from cafes in the central and eastern parts of Switzerland.

The Hitler and Mussolini labels were part of a series of 55 packages that included images from vintage cigar labels.

To read the full story, log in.
Become a Ragan Insider member to read this article and all other archived content.
Sign up today

Already a member? Log in here.
Learn more about Ragan Insider.