I've thought long and hard about posting this as it may come across as being just sour grapes (it really isn't) but after telling this story to a few forumers in person they have all said it needs posting.

Some time ago we asked our customers in Bern to suggest a shop that would be suitable for stocking our cheese. Most people mentioned Loeb, although we were warned that they had a bit of a reputation for poor customer service.

We approached them and after some lengthy telephone discussions, they said that they would be interested in meeting us. We drove down with samples and lots of information about our products and also about our marketing support and which cheeses were popular with ex-pats and local Swiss etc.

We heard nothing and after making quite a few phone calls we finally got to speak to the Deli manager again who told us that they had decided not to go ahead. No problem. But we do like to know the reason to help us in the future.

The answer? (and this is a precise translation from the German) - "No one speaks English here and English speaking people are not the type of customers we want in our shop"

My partner (Swiss BTW) was speechless but managed to say that most of our current customers, and customers at our other retailers were Swiss (and also tried to say that most expats know enough German to ask for 200 gr of cheese!).

"That can't be" was the answer. "Swiss people will only buy Swiss cheese" (so why did they have plenty of French and Italian cheese on display, or even agree to see us in the first place?)

I'm guessing that the Deli manager we met simply passed on our offer to one of the owners or senior managers who simply dismissed it, but we can't believe that anybody could be so blatant in the way they said that a minority of our customers would not be welcome at their shop.

So, if you're a native English speaker living in the area, pop in and say hello in your best Swiss German. And if you know any other, more friendly open-minded food shops in town, please let me know!

That's appalling. Well, they'll certainly get their wish of fewer English-speaking customers.

Thats just downright rude. I am sorry to hear that Grumpy.

Having said that (by no means am I trying to instigate a Bern-bashing thread), although Bern is the capital of Switzerland, it just isnt as cosmopolitan as Geneva or Zürich. It is very pretty but I didnt feel comfortable when I lived there. I gave it 3 months before deciding to move to Zürich and my other half has to pay the price of doing a daily commute as his office HQ is in Bern.

I can't believe that! There are plenty of English speaking people in Bern!
And how rude of them, geeez!

Perhaps the Chilli Jam was the deal clincher you thought. You know how "delicate" the Swiss palate can be

How about a guy standing outside the shop giving away free Poacher samples along with 20% off coupons with the website address on it? Make em pay.

How about an EF sit-in?

There loss, it's a shame they couldn't be a little more diplomatic.

...and of course ask for English cheese and express disappointment that none is stocked and ask where else in Bern sells it...

Only limited experience here (a couple of interviews and an ex-colleague who spent a year working there), but Bern does seem to have a thing about speaking German rather than English, and particularly in the business world.

I'm sorry to hear about that.

My jaw dropped when I read about discriminating against a 'language'.


Granted that I am doing my best to try lo learn German and then Swiss German, but it's not very inspiring to want to adapt and intergrate when you hear stories like this.

I sincerely hope that people like this are in the minority.



This being said........ and now knowing that we are not welcome anyway...... Is it worth playing a game?

I suggest we get as many people as possible to individually enter the shop, and with your most polite English accent, ask how much the cheese is?...... 'oh, that sounds a bit expensive, do you have any English cheese?"

Simple yes, but I bet after a while it will drive him insane, and we could meet up for a beer and compare our various insults.

I would be prepared to travel to Bern if there were enough people to make this worthwhile.

If we are going to boycott a shop, I suggest we do it with style. Otherwise he'll get exactly what he asked for.

honestly? we should do that!
who else would be in?

I've never heard of Loeb, but taking a look at their website, they don't look like the type of shop that I like to go to anway. My (admittedly rather summary impression from a single visit to their website) is one of praising normal average products as extraordinary and trying to be a high class shop without really having the variety to back that claim up.

It's not a great loss IMHO.

I very much suspect that somebody in management just said no. Dealing with an additional supplier incurs additional internal costs, and small suppliers are often difficult to negotiate with as they don't have much scope for going down in price or throwing in extras. Plus there may have been a bit of, "if the competition doesn't have it then why should we?" attitude. Everything beyond that was just lame excuses.

There's always phone calls and email queries too . . .

Could someone publish the useful Swiss German phrases?

Berner Deutch is well known for it's snail like progression towards the full stop. Perhaps it's no so much a language problem as a problem comprehending the number of dialects and languages that do proceed, at least in comparision, at a vastly increased tempo - which I believe at last the count was all of them (except possibly for a couple of the more obtuse Norfolk UK dialects)

I am from Norfolk and I know what I'm talking, very slowly, about

I love when an idea begins to snowball..... email bombs are awesome.

If we get at least 10 people interested I'll start a social event.

Grumpygrapefruit: ... We could chip in and buy some of your (soon to be famous) English cheese to have with the wines and beer afterwards.

Just a thought ... maybe they didn't mean to be rude to you on the phone. Their English might not be good enough for diplomacy .. ! I'm sure they were only trying to tell you the honest reason why they didn't want to continue.

And hey ... I need to say this once ... after all I'm Swiss German ... nobody I know has anything against English speakers .. !!! The whole "Ausländer" talk is mostly about Easterners/Africans that don't adapt. Please don't be offended.

I think that is one of the main points, there is no competition for them in Bern. The shop is nice but small and they are resting on their laurels - they are known as the best in town and they think that they will always be. We actually told them that we already about 300 customers and "fans" in the Bern area, including the new chef at the British Embassy (who's Swiss!) who orders every month for embassy functions.

Make your trip from ZH on a Wednesday and there'll be free cheese and beer at the HB when you get back!

The conversation was in German with my Swiss partner. She can be abrupt and direct but even she was shocked at their choice of words and the way they were spoken.

As I said, I don't have a problem with them not wanting our cheese (we wouldn't want it in a shop that had that sort of attitude anyway) just their assumption that all native English speakers cannot speak any German and that they are not welcome.

Perhaps the answer given was a bit rude (mostly because I think the guy didn't have manners, but most likely he didn't do it on purpose) but I don't find this to be that strange if understood properly. First of all, a shop owner has the right to decide what kind of customers does he want to address their products to. In this case they might not want to have english-speaking customers because their staff might not be ready to deal in English or because it would be too complicated to prepare everything in English.

On the other side I'm worried by reading some of the replies given to this thread: email bombings, coupons given in front of the shops, other forms of boycotting etc..

If I have a shop and decide to not deal with English-speaking customers it's my right to do so and to decide to which public should my products be offered to. It is not discrimination if I don't want to adapt to a foreign language. It might also not be convenient for them to do the effort to translate a product offering in English if the customer base does not justify the effort put in the first place.

Perhaps the deli manager was a bit rude, but the cultural arrogance shown in this (like in many others) thread I find it to be much worse.