Kräuter-Pfarrer Künzle

Kräuter-Pfarrer Künzle is a Swiss herbal brand named after Johann Künzle (1857–1945), a Catholic parish priest who became known across Switzerland as the "Kräuterpfarrer", or herb priest. Künzle founded the company Kräuterpfarrer Künzle AG in Zizers, in the canton of Graubünden, in 1939 [3]. Today the brand covers herbal teas, pastilles, baths, ointments and gels, alongside registered herbal medicines; its skin and bath products form a smaller part of the range.

The brand is no longer independent. It was acquired in 2007 by Schaer Pharma, a company based in Itingen in the canton of Basel-Landschaft, and since July 2021 it has been held by Tentan AG, another company within the Schaer Pharma group [2]. The owner presents the brand as one of the oldest and best-known names in Switzerland and says it sees its task as looking after Künzle's legacy.

Johann Künzle was born on 3 September 1857 in Hinterespen, near St. Gallen, the youngest of twelve children in a farming family. According to the company's biography, his father taught him to observe plants on walks and learn their names. A priest's training was then the usual route to secondary education for a gifted child from a poor family, and Künzle attended the seminary at St. Georgen before finishing school at the Benedictine college in Einsiedeln, where a botany teacher, Father Ludwig Staub, encouraged his interest in plants. He studied theology and philosophy in Belgium and was ordained in 1881.

His early career took him through a string of parishes in eastern Switzerland, including Amden, where he served from 1890 to 1893. Doctors were often hours away on foot, and Künzle increasingly cared for the sick as well as for souls. He also worked as an editor of Catholic periodicals and ran the monthly "Pelikan" from Feldkirch between 1893 and 1897. In Herisau, where he served from 1907, he bought at auction a herbal by the 16th-century Basel physician Jakob Theodor Tabernaemontanus, and he later drew on the writings of Hildegard of Bingen as well.

The Swiss public broadcaster SRF credits him with developing the first pill-making machine in Switzerland, which proved a profitable business [14]. One of the curators of a 2015 exhibition on his life described him to SRF as a skilled marketer as well as a devout priest.

Künzle's last parish was Wangs, in the canton of St. Gallen, where he served from 1909 to 1920. During these years his reputation as a natural healer grew. In 1911 he published "Chrut und Uchrut" (Swiss German for roughly "herbs and weeds"), an inexpensive guide written in everyday language. The company says the first edition sold 60,000 copies; SRF reports total sales of more than two million, with translations into several languages [14]. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (HLS) notes Italian, French and Romansh editions and says the book made him famous.

He also organised a herb market in Wangs. The company dates this to 1914, while German Wikipedia gives 1913 [12].

In 1920 Künzle moved to Zizers and made healing his main occupation. According to the HLS, he developed his personal pharmacy of native wild plants there into a larger business. His practice was soon contested. The medical profession obtained a court ban, and SRF reports that, lacking a medical licence, he had to sit an examination before the Graubünden health department at the age of 65, which he passed. In 1922 he won a cantonal vote on admitting natural-healing practice in Graubünden; the vote drew national attention, and the resulting law became known as the "Lex Künzle" [13].

The company bearing his name followed in 1939, and he continued to publish. "Das grosse Kräuterheilbuch" (The Great Book of Herbal Healing) appeared shortly before his death; the company gives its publication year as 1944, while the HLS refers to it as published in 1945. Sources also differ on the date of his death in Zizers. The company gives 9 January 1945 [3], a date German Wikipedia shares, while the HLS gives 7 January 1945 [13].

After the founder's death the business moved south. According to German Wikipedia, Kräuterpfarrer Künzle AG relocated to Minusio, near Locarno in Ticino, in 1954 and was converted into a foundation in 1980 [12]. The HLS states that the company operated as Parerba SA until 2000, when it took the name Kräuter Pfarrer Künzle AG, with a production centre in Quartino.

Künzle's life has become a subject for museums. In 1987 the Swiss Druggists' Association opened a historical drugstore and herb garden at the Ballenberg open-air museum, including a permanent exhibition room devoted to his life and work. Later exhibitions included a 2015 show at Museum Weesen, titled after "Chrut und Uchrut", and a 2018 herbal-medicine exhibition at the Rätisches Museum in Chur in which Künzle featured prominently, both covered by SRF.

In June 2007 the company introduced twelve herbal teas in organic quality, sold only through drugstores and pharmacies [16]. The same year, the brand passed to Schaer Pharma.

The brand has changed hands more than once since the founder's death. The HLS article, in its version dated 2005 and edited in 2009, describes Kräuter Pfarrer Künzle AG as part of Ars Vitae AG [13]. The brand's own account states that Schaer Pharma acquired it in 2007 and that a new company, Kräuterpfarrer Künzle AG, was created through that purchase. The two descriptions reflect different points in time rather than a dispute over who owns the brand today.

In early July 2021 a company restructuring transferred Kräuterpfarrer Künzle AG into Tentan AG, which also belongs to Schaer Pharma [2]. Tentan AG, based in Itingen, is now named as the brand's operating company. Products are sold through the Schaer Pharma web shop as well as through retail.

The owner frames the brand as a living continuation of the founder's work. Many of the formulations go back to Künzle, the company says, but they are adapted to current scientific knowledge and to regulatory requirements, and most are produced in Switzerland. Schaer Pharma also states that it is systematically cataloguing and archiving Künzle's estate, and that it regularly supports permanent and travelling exhibitions and book projects about him.

The brand's identity rests on the early-20th-century Swiss tradition of the herb priest. German Wikipedia places Künzle alongside Sebastian Kneipp as one of the two most familiar figures of that kind and describes him as a promoter of alternative medicine and plant-based healing. SRF quotes one of his sayings, to the effect that if people ate their weeds instead of pulling them up, they would be rid of them and healthier for it.

The range is sold mainly through pharmacies and drugstores in Switzerland, as well as selected health-food stores. Teas, baths, ointments and pastilles also appear in many Coop supermarkets, and the pastilles in Spar branches. The brand's website is published in German, French and Italian.

Most of the range is herbal medicine and herbal tea rather than cosmetics. The product categories listed by the brand include baths, ointments, gels and lotions, a fragrance blend sold in a jar, books, and Pinus Pygenol tablets. The tablets are a registered medicine, which the company says helps with vein complaints, venous congestion and varicose veins, and with swelling and heaviness in the legs [1].

The skin and bath products make up the beauty-relevant part of the line. A representative example is Künzle Essigsaures Tonerde-Gel, a gel combining aluminium acetate with arnica, edelweiss and comfrey; the company describes it as soothing and cooling and says it absorbs quickly. Among the baths, the Melissen Bad is an aromatic bath intended for relaxation, made, according to the brand, with essential oils from Indian melissa.

The founder's books remain part of the brand. The brand currently offers a new edition of "Das grosse Kräuter Heilbuch", and "Chrut und Uchrut" was reissued in 2008 in an edition expanded by Peter Oppliger, according to SRF. SRF also observes that Künzle's tea varieties are now sold in grocery stores.

No third-party certifications for the cosmetic products are documented.

The controversies connected with the name concern the founder rather than the present-day products. German Wikipedia states that some of Künzle's questionable medical views, such as his ideas about curing diabetes, led his bishop to transfer him to Zizers against his will in 1920 [12]. The HLS describes a church ban on his practice in Wangs, after which he gave up his parish there, followed by the court ban obtained by the medical profession.

The HLS also records that Künzle was theologically an anti-modernist and that, politically, he sympathised with the authoritarian regimes of his time [13].

Kräuter-Pfarrer Künzle is an acquired brand. Schaer Pharma has owned it since 2007, and since the 2021 restructuring it has been held by Tentan AG within the same group. The latest dated corporate event is that July 2021 transfer. The brand's website remains active with a current product range, and the brand's press page lists the opening of a Kräuterpfarrer Künzle herb garden in Zizers. No dated announcements from the past year are publicly visible. Distribution is concentrated in Switzerland.