Shake, regime change, generation change – The shared history of McDonald’s and Tutti in Győr over 35 years

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 05. 27. 11:40

On May 19, 1990, at 23 Lenin Street in Győr – 12 days before the street name was changed – Hungary’s third McDonald’s restaurant opened. It was not only a symbol of the change of regime, but also a springboard for a local enterprise: the Tutti Small Cooperative, which was already working on the Hungarian version of the vanilla milkshake at the time – Telex’s article recalls the event.

The story covers the entire transitional period: the rise of fast food culture, the adolescence of capitalism in Eastern and Central Europe, and a small enterprise that started out as an ice cream powder factory in a pub building in the late 1980s, and is now present outside Europe with more than 2,000 products, including dietary supplements and powdered drinks.

Shake, but not better

McDonald’s assignment was not just any: they had to reproduce the exact taste of the American shake – but they didn’t reveal anything about it. Győr chemical engineer Ottó Prohászka and his team created the perfect copy in half a year, tasting new and new vanilla shades every day. At one point, the client said: “God forbid it gets better!”

Tutti was McDonald’s supplier for three years. Then came new partners, new directions – and wild capitalism, which the founder did not want to participate in. He preferred safe, predictable, self-managed growth.

The global career of a Győr brand

Tutti now operates with an annual turnover of over 8 billion forints, and its production base is located near Rábapatona. The company develops powder-based products, from drinks to nutritional supplements, and its export revenues have exceeded domestic sales since 2010. Their factory is no longer a pub building, but a 3.3-hectare, modern site.

Generational change is not a question of Excel spreadsheets

Succession is one of the biggest challenges in today’s Hungarian SME sector. Ottó Prohászka’s daughter, Andrea, has officially been running the company since 2019 – but as she puts it: “It took another year and a half for my business card to really become true.”

The change was a painful learning process. Her father was afraid of the company, and her daughter slowly but surely took over the reins. “The manual is an empty folder – in which I had to write how I run it,” says Andrea. Today, there is no question who the first person in the company is. And although many of the employees consider her father a legend, she has already accepted that her daughter does it differently – and does it well.