How Much Does Fondue Chinoise Cost per Person in Switzerland?

For a fondue chinoise, budget 200 to 250 grams of meat per person. Swissmilk ("Fleisch: 200–250 g"), Betty Bossi ("pro Person rechnet man mit 200 bis 250 Gramm Fleisch") and the Migros Online-Theke ("we recommend approximately 250 grams of meat per person") all land in the same range independently. Everything else on the table is small change by comparison.

What you pay per person depends almost entirely on where you buy the meat. In the aktionis.ch promotion archive, documented shelf prices for fondue chinoise meat run from CHF 34.00 per kilo (Denner, Fondue chinoise Rindfleisch, 210 g pack, entry dated 27.12.2022) to CHF 96.00 per kilo (Coop, Bell Fondue Chinoise Rind, approx. 400 g fresh, entry dated 2.1.2024). At a butcher's counter, Metzgerei Berchtold lists CHF 25.50 per person for a 250 g fillet mix, which works out to CHF 102.00 per kilo — as an indicative price, because the shop states that the bill is settled in store at the actual daily prices and weight.

Adding up those stated component prices, our worked example below lands between CHF 14.30 and CHF 31.10 per person for four people at home. A restaurant fondue chinoise à discrétion cost CHF 53.50 to CHF 85.00 per person at the three venues we checked.

Sources checked regularly. Per-person quantities: Swissmilk, Betty Bossi, Migros Online-Theke, Metzgerei Berchtold, Lüthis Fleischwaren, Danko Shop. Prices and promotion dates: the aktionis.ch promotion archive for Migros, Coop and Denner, plus the online price lists of Metzgerei Berchtold and Lüthis Fleischwaren. Current shelf prices: denner.ch (July 2026). December demand: Proviande (13.12.2024, data basis UFA-Revue). Thursday promotion start: corporate.migros.ch (26.1.2026). Hygiene: BLV, BAG, Kantonales Labor Aargau and Swiss TPH in the European Journal of Epidemiology (2014). Restaurant prices: Schloss Laufen am Rheinfall, Hotel Restaurant Möve Faulensee, Kursaal Bern. Every promotion price named here is a dated archive price, not a current shelf price. Last checked: July 2026.

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How much meat per person for fondue chinoise?

The range is narrow and remarkably consistent across sources. Swissmilk and Betty Bossi both say 200 to 250 grams. The Migros Online-Theke rounds up to 250 grams. Lüthis Fleischwaren writes "pro Person etwa 200–250 Gramm dünn geschnittenes Fleisch". Danko Shop plans on 220 to 250 grams. Metzgerei Berchtold is the only source that splits by appetite: 250 g per person "für normale Esser" (normal eaters), 300 g "für gute Esser" (big eaters).

For the sides, Swissmilk is the only source with a complete per-person list. It is genuinely useful, because it is the thing that stops you buying double:

Betty Bossi adds one rule that changes the shopping list: "eine Sorte Sauce pro Person" — one variety of sauce per guest. For four people that means four different sauces, not four tubs of the same one.

What does the meat cost: frozen, fresh-packed or from the counter?

This is where the bill is decided. The prices below are exactly as recorded in the aktionis.ch promotion archive and on the two butchers' online price lists. They are dated snapshots, not current prices — the per-kilo figures are our arithmetic from the pack price and pack weight. The two rows marked "denner.ch" are the exception: those are current list prices we retrieved directly from the retailer in July 2026.

Two caveats belong with these numbers. First, Metzgerei Berchtold prints CHF 25.50 and CHF 20.00 per person with an asterisk and adds "Die Bezahlung erfolgt in der Filiale zu den effektiven Tagespreisen/Gewicht" — payment is made in store at the actual daily prices and weight. The CHF 102.00 and CHF 80.00 per kilo derived from them are therefore reference values, not fixed prices. Second, the Denner reference price of CHF 7.14 in the archive is not a Swiss shelf price rounded to 5 Rappen but the archive's own comparison figure, so we read the CHF 34.00 per kilo as an approximation. Denner currently lists the same product at CHF 20.95 for 500 g, which is CHF 41.90 per kilo.

The structure matters more than any single line. Across this data, the gap between the cheapest frozen pack and a counter fillet mix is roughly a factor of three. That is not a quality verdict — fillet is not rump, and a butcher slices differently from a frozen production line. It only means that at a fondue chinoise, saving on the meat is saving on almost everything.

One counter-intuitive detail from the archive: a deep percentage cut on a premium line undercuts the discounter's shelf price. The 600 g Finest pack fell to CHF 33.25 per kilo on 3 December 2024 at −49%, below the Denner pack's shelf price of CHF 34.00 per kilo. The lowest per-kilo figure in this table nevertheless remains the Denner pack on promotion at CHF 21.20 — a discounted premium range reaches the discounter's shelf price, not its promotion price. Catch the promotion and you buy the dearer line for what the cheap one normally costs.

Bouillon or oil: which version costs less?

Fondue chinoise is the bouillon version; Betty Bossi calls it "die figurfreundliche Variante", the waistline-friendly one. Fondue bourguignonne is the oil version and needs, per Betty Bossi, "geschmacksneutralem und hoch erhitzbarem Öl" — a neutral, high-heat oil such as peanut oil. Danko Shop plans on roughly 1.5 litres of strong beef bouillon for four people.

On price this is not close. A 240 g tin of Knorr Rindsbouillon granules sat in the archive at a CHF 8.80 shelf price at Denner, CHF 6.95 on promotion (−21%, entry from 2.8.2025) — and one tin lasts well beyond a single evening. Frying oil at Coop appeared in the same archive at CHF 15.95 regular, CHF 10.95 on promotion (−31%, entry from 30.10.2025); the pack size is not stated there, so we do not derive a per-litre price from it. Oil is also typically consumed within the evening. Bouillon granules are not.

Chinoise is a team sport. So is the shopping.
With Rappn's shared shopping list, everyone adds what they're bringing — meat, sauces, bouillon, sides — and you can see across all seven chains where the basket is cheapest this week.

What does fondue chinoise cost per person? A worked example for 4

The table below is an illustrative calculation that adds up nothing but the dated component prices named above. It is not a price guarantee and not a snapshot of this week. Quantities follow Swissmilk, at 250 g of meat per person, for four people; on the sauces we deliberately count short, see below the table.

The bouillon is charged as a whole tin even though one evening uses only part of it — that way nothing is estimated, and the total errs high rather than low. On the sauces we err the other way: three tubs are 525 g, which is below Swissmilk's 150 g per person and below Betty Bossi's rule of one variety per guest — a fourth tub adds CHF 3.30, or CHF 0.85 per person. Leaf salad, vegetables and pickles are not included: we have no verified prices for those, and we do not write down numbers we cannot source. Add those lines yourself. Price sources: meat and sides from the aktionis.ch promotion archive (Migros, Denner); Thomy sauce 175 g at a CHF 3.30 shelf price (Denner entry from 19.11.2024, promotion CHF 2.60); Knorr bouillon 240 g at a CHF 8.80 shelf price.

When do the fondue chinoise promotions land?

The aktionis.ch archive shows a clear season. Documented fondue chinoise promotions sit, among others, at Migros on 27.10.2020, 21.11.2023, 25.11.2025, 2.12.2015, 3.12.2024, 5.12.2019, 6.12.2022, 7.12.2021, 17.12.2024 and 22.12.2015; at Coop on 12.11.2024, 31.12.2024 and 2.1.2024; at Denner on 19.12.2017, 5.12.2018, 27.12.2022 and 23.12.2025; at Lidl on 26.10.2017. That is a selection from the archive, not a full count.

Two patterns stand out. First, the window opens in late October — the earliest entry we found is 27.10.2020 — and closes in the first week of January. Outside those months the archive is thin but not empty: Coop, for instance, has a fondue chinoise promotion from 24.2.2015 (Coop Fondue chinoise Rindfleisch, 250 g, CHF 23.50 down to CHF 14.10, −40%). Second, the deepest cuts all date to the first half of December, not the week before Christmas — the 600 g Finest pack at CHF 39.90 down to CHF 19.95 appears twice in the archive, on 7.12.2021 as −50% and on 3.12.2024 as −49%. In this archive pattern, shopping on 23 December costs more than shopping on 3 December — and a frozen platter keeps perfectly well for two weeks.

One thing that matters for timing in store: since 5 February 2026, Migros and Denner promotions "starten … jeweils neu am Donnerstag und gelten bis Mittwoch der Folgewoche" — they start on Thursday and run to the Wednesday of the following week — and the Migros magazine now arrives on Wednesday (press release, corporate.migros.ch, 26.1.2026). For fondue shopping that makes Thursday the day worth checking. The full weekly rhythm is in our Swiss promotion calendar, and the meat side in detail under meat deals in Switzerland.

Proviande confirms that December demand really does rise: weekly meat sales in December run roughly five percent above the annual average, and Proviande names filet, fondue chinoise and smoked ham (geräuchertes Schinkli) as the dishes with the clearest December increase (article of 13.12.2024, data basis UFA-Revue). The festive plate differs by region: Proviande cites poultry, especially turkey, for French-speaking Switzerland, capon with mustard sauce for Ticino, and a mix of pastetli, ham, fondue chinoise, roasts and filet for German-speaking Switzerland.

At home or at a restaurant?

Three verified Swiss venues as a reference point. Hotel Restaurant Möve in Faulensee runs a fondue chinoise à discrétion buffet at CHF 53.50 per person, every Friday evening and, from November to the end of March, every Saturday evening too, from 18:00. Schloss Laufen am Rheinfall charges CHF 79.00 per person à discrétion, including mineral water and iced tea, in the season from 13 November 2026 to 20 March 2027, Fridays and Saturdays from 18:00. Kursaal Bern offers a three-course menu with fondue chinoise at the table plus salad and dessert buffets at CHF 85.00 per person, for groups of 25 to 180.

Against our worked example of CHF 14.30 to CHF 31.10 per person at home, eating out costs just under twice to almost six times as much: CHF 53.50 against CHF 31.10 at one end, CHF 85.00 against CHF 14.30 at the other. That is not a criticism of the venues: à discrétion means unlimited meat, and rent, wages and service are expensive in Switzerland. It only means the bill at home is almost entirely yours to set.

What do the authorities say about fondue chinoise hygiene?

A fondue chinoise puts raw meat on the table, which is why there is official guidance on it. We reproduce only what the authorities themselves state.

The BLV recommends using "beim Fondue Chinoise einen separaten Teller für das rohe Fleisch" — a separate plate for the raw meat — keeping raw meat and fish products apart from other foods, using "unterschiedliche Schneidbretter und Utensilien" (different cutting boards and utensils), heating "Fleisch, Geflügel, Fisch und Meeresfrüchte auf mindestens 70 Grad" (meat, poultry, fish and seafood to at least 70 degrees), storing perishables "im Kühlschrank bei unter 5 Grad" (in the fridge below 5 degrees), and washing hands thoroughly with soap before and after preparation. The BAG states that "jährlich … zwischen 7000 und 8000 Fälle von Campylobacter-Erkrankungen" are reported in Switzerland each year, and lists separate plates for raw meat and side dishes at a fondue chinoise as a prevention measure.

The cantonal laboratory of Aargau puts the same rule more bluntly: "Rohes Fleisch und roher Fleischsaft dürfen sich nie mit Saucen und Beilagen mischen!" — raw meat and raw meat juices must never mix with sauces and sides. It gives 5 °C or below for chilled food and a core temperature of 70 °C for 2 minutes for poultry and minced meat, and reports over 7,000 illnesses a year in Switzerland with roughly 15 percent hospitalised.

A Swiss TPH study in the European Journal of Epidemiology (release of 3.7.2014) examined the holiday effect: meat fondue was associated there with a fourfold increased infection risk, about half of the holiday-period cases were traced to that source, and separate or compartmented plates for raw and cooked meat reduced the risk by a factor of up to five according to the release. Previously frozen meat was also associated with lower risk. That is worth noting, because the frozen platter is simultaneously the cheapest option in the promotion archive.

So what does it actually cost?

It depends — and almost entirely on one decision. At 250 grams of meat per person, the meat accounts for 61 to 82 percent of the bill across our three scenarios. Between CHF 34.90 and CHF 102.00 per kilo, the verified sources put about CHF 17 per person per evening in play. The sides, sauces and bouillon combined move less than CHF 6 per person in our calculation.

So the only rule this data supports is: decide on channel and timing first, everything else second. And because the archive puts the deep-discount window from late October and at its lowest in the first half of December, a price alert beats a panic run on 23 December. For the same arithmetic with cheese instead of meat, see our guides to fondue night cost and raclette night cost.

Set a price alert on fondue chinoise meat.
Rappn compares promotions across seven Swiss retailers and tells you when the frozen platter or the fresh counter cut goes on Aktion — from late October, when the window opens. Fill the basket together, see the per-kilo prices side by side, buy before 3 December. Get Rappn free.