City Gingerbread Prize awarded to organisers of cherry-tree project

The city’s Gingerbread prize is awarded to those who achieve great things but do not shout about it from the rooftops. This year it was awarded to the organisers of a cherry tree-planting project who have ensured no fewer than 1,000 of them have been planted in the canton since 2008, contributing to the fact that Zug could rightly be known now as Chriesiland (Cherryland) rather than just as a business location.

The Gingerbread prizes were awarded to the team, Ueli Kleeb, Caroline Lötscher, Heiri Scherer and Josef Strickler (from the left seated in the photograph) by Dolfi Müller, performing one of his last acts as mayor (second from the left, standing, among other members of the core city council).

Lötchser said how nice it was to have been honoured in this way, an old tradition, as Kleeb and Scherer recalled how they planted the first 19 cherry trees of the project at the St Verena chapel ten years ago. Not all of them survived that first winter, but, ten years on, 1,000 have been planted in the canton.

It was Strickler, the city gardener, who managed to persuade farmers in the city to plant more cherry trees, though it took a bit more persuasion to get the council on board, as Müller confessed. What helped was in 2011 when Heinz Tännler, then the cantonal government member responsible for planning, decided the project should be made an official cantonal strategy target. And, after all, let it not be forgotten the canton does produce some 50,000 litres of kirsch and 250,000 Zug cherry cakes a year. Then there is the cherry market and cherry run in the summer. Even the Wall Street Journal, German TV channel ARD, and France 5 have reported on them.

“When I look back at all we have achieved over the past ten years, it gives me goose pimples,” admitted Kleeb.

After the ceremony, the organisers and councillors headed off to celebrate at the Rathauskeller restaurant, though it was not mentioned whether any cherry-related product was consumed.