The FRUTAL Versandbäckerei is a classic family business. Christoph Frutiger has been helping in the bakery since he was a small child. «It was always clear to me that I wanted to be a baker one day,» he says. Ten years ago, the former bodybuilder and his wife Erika Frutiger took over the company - the shop including the tea room in the village, the bakery production and the meringue production - from his father. Today he employs 32 people. The business is going well, but the distant future is uncertain. Christoph Frutiger's children used to help in the business, but now his son works as a banker and his daughter as a chemical laboratory assistant.

Business owner is on Christoph Frutiger's business card, even if "girl for everything" would be more appropriate. Working in production, taking orders, packing and delivering goods, drawing up work schedules, giving tours, regularly visiting the three different locations, doing office work, ... - the activities could hardly be more varied. His working days, his long working days, are correspondingly full. Frutiger wakes up at 3.30 a.m. and finishes work at around 8 p.m. «At lunchtime, I treat myself to a drink.» At noon, I allow myself 1.5 hours of sleep after lunch. But there is no sign of complaining. On the contrary. «I never get up in the morning and don't feel like i he says.» He loves his job too much.

Christoph Frutiger stops the stirrer. «Taste it,» he says. «That's how I like the mixture best, almost like a chocolate marshmallow.» For the meringues, however, he has to let the machine run a little longer. «The egg white doesn't always behave quite the same way,» the expert explains. Two or three minutes later, he is satisfied with the consistency. If necessary, Christoph Frutiger now mixes in the appropriate flavouring. There are almost no limits to his imagination. From coconut to chocolate, raspberry, banana, pineapple, Baileys, vanilla, caramel, blueberry and Christoph Frutiger's personal favourite: pink pepper. «Together with vanilla ice cream and cream, a real treat.» But almost more than eating meringues, Christoph Frutiger - who likes the sweet pastry but describes himself more as a chocolate lover - creates new variations. «On a Sunday evening, when I'm all alone here, I can really switch off, relax.» And so there are now also meringues for vegans and diabetics.

We don't use any flavouring, we make the little meringues nature for the so-called «Gschnöisi-Seckli». And so now the actual meringues machine, which was made in Italy, is used. Christoph Frutiger puts the white sugar-egg-white mixture into the machine, presses a few buttons, puts a tray underneath - and off you go. No more piping bag, no long procedure. After a few seconds, he takes the first full tray from the machine. A few minutes later, there is a trolley in front of us with 15 trays of 66 meringues each.