Schaerer Brand Guidelines: The Swiss Coffee Machine Maker That Began With Medical Equipment

Steam, sterilisers and a first coffee brewer.

Schaerer began in 1892 in Bern, founded by Maurice Schaerer. SWI swissinfo.ch, in a 2024 history of the Swiss coffee machine industry, describes its start as a small retail shop, and says Schaerer used his engineering skills to develop and design surgical instruments, disinfection devices and operating tables, which were much in demand during the First World War. English Wikipedia calls the early business a factory for medical equipment that opened branches abroad. Swiss Medtech, the industry association, credits operating tables and sterilisation systems for hospitals with the success of Schaerer Medical AG of Münsingen, in the canton of Bern, which it says still exists today.

Coffee grew out of that medical work. In 2017 Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported that the company’s knowledge of using steam in sterilisers led to its first coffee machine in 1924. The company itself says that in 1924 it “responded to the contemporary longing for luxury and enjoyment, born out of the deprivations of the First World War,” and developed its first own machine, a coffee quantity brewer. English Wikipedia gives an earlier date: it says “breakfast appliances,” coffee machines for hospitals, were made from 1919, and that within the next twenty years the company offered a wide line of machines for restaurants, from small cafés to grand hotels.

The next step came in 1957. SWI swissinfo.ch says Schaerer developed the PIC manual doser that year, a machine now considered one of the first automated coffee machines; English Wikipedia describes the 1957 model as the first coffee machine with a fully automatic hydraulic piston system. SWI swissinfo.ch quotes Chahan Yeretzian, head of the Coffee Excellence Center at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, naming Egro, Schaerer and Rex as the great pioneers of the Swiss trade.

The fully automatic machine, and the Coffee Soul.

Schaerer’s place in the trade rests on the fully automatic machine. SWI swissinfo.ch says that in 1970 Schaerer developed the KM series, which it calls the world’s first fully automatic coffee machines with an integrated grinder; SRF also dates Schaerer’s first fully automatic machine to 1970. English Wikipedia says the dosing was automated in 1967 and the first machine with a built-in grinder followed two years later.

The timing mattered. SWI swissinfo.ch links the rise of such machines to Swiss restaurants in the 1970s, when a national collective labour agreement for the sector, signed in 1974, raised wage costs and the staff who had made drinks behind the buffet were no longer needed. The historian Jonathan Morris, of the University of Hertfordshire, told the publication that the Swiss machines answered a different need from Italian espresso machines: how to make such drinks simpler for staff without barista training.

Milk came next. An SRF picture caption, supplied by the company, dates its first fully automatic machine that could also make cappuccino to 1993; English Wikipedia says the company launched an automatic cappuccino system in 1997. The company says its Coffee Competence Centre, which trains customers, partners and staff, has gathered its coffee knowledge since 1999.

Today’s range is led by the Schaerer Coffee Soul, with the Schaerer Coffee Skye alongside it. TOP HOTEL Projects reported in September 2025 that the 100,000th Coffee Soul had left the Zuchwil line. The first generation came out in 2017 as the successor to the Coffee Art Plus; the current generation was unveiled at HOST Milano in 2019 and has been in series production since October 2020. The publication says it is designed for up to 250 cups a day, has touchscreens of 10.4 or 12.1 inches, offers modes for staff service, self-service and frequent users such as offices, and can take up to seven interchangeable parts in a chosen colour. A product manager called it the most successful machine in the company’s history.

Machines for counters, buffets and offices.

Commercial coffee machine makers sell mainly to businesses rather than to homes. Their customers are hotel groups, coffee-shop chains, office caterers and restaurants, and their products sit on hotel breakfast buffets, office counters, convenience-store shelves and behind café bars. Some build fully automatic machines that grind, dose, brew and froth milk at the touch of a screen; others build large batch brewers that fill urns and airpots for a busy service.

Much of the trade grew from a practical problem. SWI swissinfo.ch reported in 2024 that Swiss restaurants in the 1970s faced higher wage costs and fewer staff behind the buffet, and the historian Jonathan Morris told the publication that Swiss automatic machines set out to make coffee and milk drinks simpler for staff without barista training. Switzerland remains a centre of that business, with makers in Weggis, Zuchwil and elsewhere.

The machines now present themselves through screens and options as much as through steel. In 2025 TOP HOTEL Projects described one fully automatic model offered with touchscreens of two sizes, modes for staff service, self-service and office use, and interchangeable panels in a customer’s chosen colour. Milk systems, cleaning routines and service networks also feature in how these makers describe what they offer.

Launches tend to happen at trade fairs rather than in shops. HOST Milano, the hospitality fair held in Milan, is one such stage; specialty-coffee events such as World of Coffee are another. This guide sets out what can be checked about each maker — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its machines are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From Bern to Zuchwil, from WMF to Groupe SEB.

The company has had two owners in two decades. English Wikipedia says cooperation with the German metalware group WMF began in 2003, when WMF took a stake of 34 percent. SRF reported that Schaerer has been part of the WMF Group since 2006 and, since the end of 2016, of the French Groupe SEB, which bought WMF. The company says it belongs to SEB Professional Beverage, a division that also includes WMF, Curtis, La San Marco and Zummo.

It also moved. In 2009 Schaerer left Moosseedorf, in the canton of Bern, for Zuchwil, near Solothurn, settling on the former Sulzer industrial site to give itself room to grow, SRF reported. In 2017 the broadcaster said about 15,000 fully automatic machines a year were built there, for customers such as large roasters, hotel chains and simple restaurants in Europe, the United States and, increasingly, Asia, and that Schaerer worked only for the hospitality trade rather than for homes.

Where the machines are made is stated plainly by the company: it says its headquarters and production are in Zuchwil, with about 400 employees, and that its management system there is certified to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001. Its motto is “We love it your way,” and it describes its portfolio as small but flexibly configurable.

For a design guide, Schaerer shows how a maker of hospital equipment turned steam know-how into a coffee brand, and how a machine’s colours and screens can be set to fit each customer’s own brand. Compare Franke, another Swiss maker of professional coffee machines, and Thermoplan, the fully automatic machine maker of Weggis. For this guide we use roast brown, steam grey and milk white with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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