Migros is one of Switzerland's largest enterprises, its largest supermarket chain and largest employer. It co-founded Turkey's largest retailer, Migros Türk, which became independent of Migros Switzerland in 1975.
The name comes from the French "mi" for half or mid-way and "gros", which means wholesale. Thus the word connotes prices that are halfway between retail and wholesale. The logo of the company is a large orange M, which some Swiss newspapers call "the orange giant" (German: oranger Riese, French: géant orange). The firm's loyalty card is the M-cumulus card (a play on the word accumulate and a type of cloud formation).
Migros was founded in 1925 in Zürich as a private enterprise by Gottlieb Duttweiler, who had the idea of selling just six basic foodstuffs at low prices to householders who, in those days, did not have ready access to markets of any kind.
In 1954 Migros entered the Turkish market, forming Migros Türk in partnership with the Istanbul City Council. This was sold to Turkish group Koç Holding in 1975 and is the largest retailer in Turkey.