The company’s foun­der, Giuseppe Bianchi, born in 1857 and a nati­ve of Milan, came to Geneva as a young man—after run­ning a cate­ring busi­ness in Florence—to learn French and at the same time broa­den his indu­stry exper­ti­se. [read wpml_attr_0=‚more‘ ]

Two years later, Giuseppe moved to Zurich and in 1881 foun­ded his own small shop on Untere Strehlgasse. At first, he traded only in fruit and vege­ta­bles as well as Italian cured meats, and made do with the help of one worker. Over the fol­lo­wing years, he met the daugh­ter of the Hotel Krone on Limmatquai, Mrs Emma Schneebeli, whom he mar­ried in 1886. In 1889, G. Bianchi acqui­red the pro­per­ty at Marktgasse 3, «Zum Schwendekeller». He had it com­ple­te­ly demo­lished and rebuilt. Somewhat later, he was also able to purcha­se the adjoi­ning hou­se at Marktgasse 5, known as «Zum gol­de­nen Ring», from David Sprüngli (the foun­der of the Sprüngli com­pa­ny) after Sprüngli moved to Paradeplatz. In 1892, he purcha­sed a pro­per­ty on Zeltweg (Sprechersprache) with sta­bles and sto­rage rooms. These struc­tu­ral expan­si­ons enab­led him to enga­ge in the who­le­sa­le trade of fish, poul­try and game meat. 

In his young wife, G. Bianchi found a capa­ble and tire­less col­le­ague who deser­ves due cre­dit for the business’s rise. The employee Jb. Wolfer, hired in 1884, remain­ed loy­al to the busi­ness for over 50 years, and even in reti­re­ment he still atten­ded dai­ly to his for­mer duties. The first book­kee­per was hired in 1889. 

The Bianchi-Schneebeli cou­ple had four child­ren, all of whom bra­ve­ly hel­ped their par­ents in the busi­ness when­ever work requi­red it. Their son Giuseppe «Nino» Bianchi pur­sued a com­mer­cial care­er; after finis­hing school, he beca­me fami­li­ar with hotel kit­chens in St. Moritz and Nice and then went to the Bresse to beco­me tho­rough­ly acquain­ted with the poul­try sec­tor à fond. In England, he expan­ded his lan­guage and indu­stry know­ledge, but was cal­led home from abroad when his father fell serious­ly ill. Under the expert gui­dance of his par­ents, he sett­led into the busi­ness, took on the new task with youthful enthu­si­asm, and soon beca­me the company’s inde­pen­dent mana­ger. When the foun­der died in 1920, the son was the­r­e­fo­re alre­a­dy estab­lished as his successor. 

With the new import oppor­tu­ni­ties of the post-war peri­od, the volu­me of busi­ness increa­sed ste­adi­ly and soon requi­red ano­ther expan­si­on of the pre­mi­ses. To this end, in 1924 Giuseppe «Nino» Bianchi bought the adjoi­ning hou­se at Metzgergasse 4, known as «Zum schwar­zen Sternen», and in the same year the upper part of Metzgergasse 6, the hou­se «Zum Lichthof», was added. The walls were ope­ned up and a sin­gle unit was crea­ted, allo­wing the warehou­se and sto­rage rooms to be signi­fi­cant­ly enlar­ged. As the buil­ding expan­ded, the num­ber of employees kept pace. Founder Giuseppe Bianchi had star­ted with just one worker, whe­re­as today the work­force under his son Giuseppe «Nino» Bianchi, the cur­rent owner, has rea­ched 100. On the occa­si­on of the 50th anni­ver­sa­ry of the busi­ness (1931), Giuseppe «Nino» Bianchi estab­lished an old-age and disa­bi­li­ty insu­rance sche­me for the bene­fit of his employees. 

1869:
The father of com­pa­ny foun­der Giuseppe Bianchi dies from a war inju­ry. He was a food mer­chant on Corso di Porto Romana, Milan. His child­ren Edoardo (born 1865, foun­der of Bianchi cars/motorcycles/bicycles) and Giuseppe Bianchi (born 1857, foun­der of G. Bianchi AG) grow up in an orpha­na­ge. Edoardo trains as a bicy­cle mecha­nic and Giuseppe in the food trade. 

1881:
Giuseppe Bianchi opens a shop on Strehlgasse in Zurich,
whe­re he offers main­ly citrus fruits and Italian cured meats.

1889:
Giuseppe Bianchi acqui­res the pro­per­ty at Marktgasse 3 «Zum Schwendenkeller».

In 1920, the 2nd gene­ra­ti­on, led by Nino Bianchi, took over the reins of the com­pa­ny and expan­ded the busi­ness by purcha­sing addi­tio­nal pro­per­ties on Marktgasse and Metzgergasse, suc­cessful­ly stee­ring it through the turm­oil of World War II with gre­at social commitment.

1919:
Nino mar­ries Huberta Hesse from Frankfurt (Oder).

1920:
Nino takes over the busi­ness and purcha­ses the hou­se at Marktgasse 5, «Zum gol­de­nen Ring», from David Sprüngli (Confiserie Sprüngli). The buil­ding pre­vious­ly hou­sed the ori­gi­nal Sprüngli con­fec­tion­ery. However, Sprüngli had alre­a­dy moved bey­ond the city walls—he was declared insane—in 1859 to Paradeplatz. At that time, it was still inten­ded to build the ter­mi­nus of Zurich’s main rail­way sta­ti­on there. 

1924:
Nino buys the two adja­cent pro­per­ties on Metzgergasse.

From 1974, the 3rd gene­ra­ti­on, led by Eduard Bianchi, shaped the fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment of the retail shop. As a pio­neer, he intro­du­ced home deli­veries within the city of Zurich and was also regard­ed as a trail­bla­zer in pro­vi­ding live freshwa­ter fish (trout and carp). At the time, this was an abso­lu­te novel­ty. For this pur­po­se, he even used a raft on the Limmat. His gre­at pas­si­on was local retail and sup­p­ly­ing pri­va­te households. 

The 4th gene­ra­ti­on took over ope­ra­tio­nal and stra­te­gic manage­ment in 1988. It was reco­g­nis­ed that, for various rea­sons, the come­sti­bles busi­ness on Marktgasse in Zurich could not be con­tin­ued in the medi­um term. A fun­da­men­tal realignment—away from local retail in the city of Zurich and towards wholesale—became neces­sa­ry. With gastro who­le­sa­le, a new mar­ket was to be deve­lo­ped in order to sup­p­ly hotels and restau­rants as well as the emer­ging system cate­ring sec­tor throug­hout Switzerland.
The move to Zufikon took place from 1993 to 1995. The shop on Marktgasse was per­ma­nent­ly clo­sed in spring 1998. As ear­ly as 1990, the 4th gene­ra­ti­on wan­ted to buy the shares of G. Bianchi AG; ulti­m­ate­ly, this share purcha­se was suc­cessful­ly com­ple­ted in 1997.
The stra­te­gic shift from ope­ra­ting a local retail shop to beco­ming a logi­stics com­pa­ny acti­ve throug­hout Switzerland has the­r­e­fo­re been ful­ly successful. 

1983:
Entry into the busi­ness by the 4th gene­ra­ti­on (Paolo and Giulio Bianchi)

1988:
Assumption of ope­ra­tio­nal manage­ment by Paolo & Giulio

1997:
Share purcha­se by Paolo and Giulio Bianchi

1998:
Relocation from Marktgasse in Zurich to Zufikon in Aargau. The regi­stered office of GBZ was moved to Zufikon on 1998-05-12. 

And the long-estab­lished company’s jour­ney will con­ti­n­ue in the future, ensu­red by the ent­ry of Dario and Luca, the sons of Giulio and Paolo Bianchi, at the begin­ning of 2017. May this fami­ly tra­di­ti­on never end … 

2017:
Entry into the busi­ness by the 5th generation

2021:
Assumption of exe­cu­ti­ve manage­ment and majo­ri­ty shareholding