Swiss retailer Migros apologised on Wednesday for what it said was a string of errors which put coffee cream with the faces of Hitler and Mussolini in cafes in the Alpine country.

Migros said it "offered its excuses for this unforgivable incident" and that it was in the process of withdrawing the small pots of cream from cafes to which they had been delivered.

Labels from mini cream pots have cult following in Switzerland, with manufacturers feeding the passion of collectors by releasing regular new editions.

The plastic pots were not on sale in the Migros supermarket network, but served to customers who ordered white coffee at about a hundred restaurants and cafes among retail giant's business clients.

Migros said one of its subsidiaries, milk company ELSA, had been responsible for supplying the cream and that its internal control procedures had been "insufficient".

The designs were developed by Karo, a firm which specialises in cream pots, and were part of a 55-label series based on vintage cigar bands.

Among them were cigar bands from the pre-World War II era which showed the faces of Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler and his Italian Fascist counterpart Benito Mussolini.