Why Toblerone chocolate will lose its ‘Swiss’ status

Toblerone, the chocolate bar known for its triangular peaks, is losing the Matterhorn mountain from its logo after it clashed with Switzerland’s strict marketing rules.

Future Toblerone packaging will feature a generic mountain design after the chocolate bar’s American owner, Mondelez, moved part of the production to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, starting this year.

“The packaging redesign features a modernized mountain logo, which aligns with the geometric, triangular aesthetic,” a Mondelez spokesperson told the Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung.

Under Swiss legislation, which came into effect in Switzerland in 2017, companies must show that their products are sufficiently “Swiss” to claim this label – which has long been associated with prestige products such as Swiss watches.

Swiss officials at the time cited studies showing that an association with Switzerland can add as much as 20% to the price of a product or even more for luxury items.

That association, however, was “much coveted and misused,” officials said, in a way that damaged its credibility.

Now, food products must source at least 80% of their raw materials in Switzerland to qualify as Swiss-made – or 100% in the case of milk and milk products (cocoa is an exception because it falls into the category of natural items that cannot be produced locally).

Mondelez did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the rebranding.

The fate of a bear depicted climbing the iconic mountain in the current logo remains unknown (the bear is partially hidden within the logo, and some customers were apparently surprised to learn of its existence).

Bern, the Swiss town where the Toblers opened a candy store in 1868, is known as the “City of Bears.”

The company’s website states that the unique triangular shape of the more than 100-year-old chocolate bar was inspired by the mountainous homeland of Swiss chocolatier Theodor Tobler – in particular, the 4,478-meter-high Matterhorn, one of the best-known mountains in the Alps.

Slovakia’s highest mountain, the Gerlachovsky Stit, is only 2,654 meters.

This is not the first time Toblerone’s iconic peaks have been involved in a troubled political debate.

In 2016, the British government was asked to explain why Mondelez widened the spacing between the chocolate peaks: was it Brexit?

As it turned out, no.

The reduction in the weight of the bars had been planned long before because of the rising price of some ingredients, the company said at the time.

Switzerland is not the only country concerned about safeguarding the authenticity of its products.

French producers have fought for years to protect the Champagne name from being used by foreign producers – a fight that broke out again in 2021 in Russia.

A US appeals court ruled last week that “Gruyere” is a common term for cheese made in America and can be used for producers outside the Gruyère region in Switzerland and France.

With information from Estadão