Do you know Wedel's chocolate cafés? There are twenty of them today, mainly in shopping centers, which I write without any irony. In Jan Wedel's time, company stores were in many Polish cities, as well as in London and Paris, and were always an important part of the family business. I think that if Jan Wedel were alive today, he would also place his stores in shopping malls.

Jan Wedel was excellent at chocolate production and sales. He started working at his father's company at the age of 34, in 1908. Superbly educated, with a doctorate in chemistry, he independently ran the business only after the death of both parents, from 1923. He was 49 years old at the time.

On the plot purchased by his father Emil Wedel, he built a new factory, equipped it with modern production line equipment, installed pneumatic mail for document delivery, as well as machines supporting invoice issuing and bookkeeping, plus two telephone exchanges.

I don't know what and where the accounting programs are at Wedel today, but the factory on Zamoyskiego Street still stands.

In 1929, he promised employees that despite the crisis, everyone would keep their jobs, although he was forced to reduce the working week to 5 days. At the same time, a year later, he wasn't afraid of radical steps against the trade union when a strike broke out in the factory.
Yes, he fired people he couldn't work with, but he always cared greatly about product quality and looked after his employees. The factory offered a nursery, kindergarten, medical and dental care. There was a bathhouse and cafeteria, a choir and drama club operated, as well as a sports club...
Working at Wedel was highly valued and excellently paid.

Dear parents, do you think that sticker or card collections included with today's products for your children were invented now? Jan Wedel also added them to his sweets – you could collect images of Polish rulers, famous Poles, car drawings. "Cinema" chocolate contained photos of actors.
Jan Wedel was an excellent marketer.

He regularly published advertisements, consistently using from the thirties the trademark known to this day: the calligraphic inscription E. Wedel. Packaging was designed by very well-paid artists including Tadeusz Gronowski and Zofia Stryjeńska, and Wedel products were promoted by contemporary heroes, travelers, and scholars.

When World War II broke out, 1,350 people worked at Wedel and the factory literally fed Warsaw. Jan Wedel never left the occupied city and repeatedly rejected proposals to sign the Reichsliste (his grandfather Karol Ernest Wedel came from Germany). He continued production, helping whoever he could, paid bribes to free arrested employees, sent packages to prisoner-of-war camps, and supported artists.

He was a philanthropist and benefactor throughout his life.
In 1948, his factory was taken away, he lost his entire fortune, but the E. Wedel brand remained in use. The nationalized factory called "Sugar Industry Plants named after July 22" still used the logo known to everyone. When The Hague court of justice recognized Jan's complaint, he used the compensation money to fund a silver background for the cross in the Evangelical-Augsburg church in Warsaw.

Reaching for a can of Wedel drinking chocolate this morning, I was thinking about when the idea of corporate social responsibility actually appeared in Poland?