![]() ![]() The new factory building accommodated the roasting house and storerooms as well as the main office, salesrooms and post room. Separating the production area and salesrooms created the basis for the company’s further expansion. At the heart of the factory was a newly built large roasting machine that improved the flavour and shelf life of the coffee. In order to meet the sharply rising demand for roasted coffee, Meinl purchased a five-storey house in Vienna and developed it into a factory. As he was the first and only retailer to offer ready-made coffee blends, he became famous overnight. Meinl was now no longer just a grocer like so many others but rather a manufacturer of branded consumer goods. The huge number of customers meant he had to move to a larger shop premises. In 1877, Meinl started selling freshly roasted coffee in his shop. In order to be able to offer a variety of flavours, he tried out blends made from different kinds of coffee. He achieved this through a special cooling technique and the addition of oxygen during the roasting process. After lengthy experimentation, Julius Meinl I developed a patented roasting method that unlocked and at the same time largely retained the aroma of the coffee. Customers had to roast the green beans themselves at home in roasting drums or pans, which usually produced less than satisfactory results. Until then, coffee was only ever sold raw. The foundations for the company’s soon to follow rapid rise was Meinl’s idea to offer ready-made coffee blends. This new beginning was initiated with a radical savings plan. The remaining debts were only paid off in 1910. Julius Meinl I arranged with his creditors for fifty percent of his debts to be written off. Īs a consequence of the economic crisis that came hot on the heels of the Vienna Stock Exchange crash in 1873, Meinl found himself having difficulty making payments the following year. Indeed, Julius Meinl I supposedly always greeted his customers with the words “How may I be of service?”. The business was noted for its high awareness of quality and customer-friendliness from the outset. Apart from raw coffee, Meinl also sold cocoa, tea, rice and sugar. He was supported in his business activities by a domestic servant. Meinl’s apartment was situated in the same building. It was most probably a small shop space with a display window. Julius Meinl I’s fine food business began to trade on 2 February 1862 and shortly thereafter he was able to open his first grocer’s shop, located in Vienna city centre. This protected merchants against unfair competition and the deception of customers, which opened up the possibility for Meinl to make a name for themselves through the high quality of their wares for the very first time. Another important precondition for the successful founding of Meinl’s company was the ‘Law for the protection of commercial brands and other designations’ enacted in 1858. The number of coffee houses in Vienna therefore also grew rapidly from 1850 onwards. Meinl was not the only one to benefit from this liberalisation. A speciality food retailer like Meinl was therefore now also able to roast coffee away from a coffee house. Moreover, traders were now allowed to pursue any business activity they liked. Anyone who wanted to open a business no longer needed a special concession to do so. The outdated guild-related restrictions were finally lifted with the liberal commercial code introduced in 1859. When he considered founding a business, Julius Meinl benefited from earlier far-reaching reforms, in particular the freedom to trade and brand protection. The mediaeval lanes of the Old Town were replaced with wide boulevards lined with magnificent palaces and many new businesses. The glacis, the open area between the city walls and the suburbs, was released for development. In 1857, Emperor Franz Joseph ordered the demolition of the city walls. ![]() In order to cope with the rapid rise in the number of inhabitants, the city’s territory was expanded with the incorporation of the suburbs in 1850. This also included freedom of movement for subjects within the empire, who now increasingly came to Vienna thanks to the newly constructed railway network. The bourgeois revolution of 1848 heralded a phase of liberalisation. Vienna was at this time the pulsating centre of a Danube Monarchy in the grip of rapid social and economic change. ![]()
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