A Toblerone chocolate bar, with the Matterhorn on the back. The company will replace the iconic peak on its label with a more generic mountain due to changes in production.
Fabrice Coffini/AFP via Getty Images
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Fabrice Coffini/AFP via Getty Images
A Toblerone chocolate bar, with the Matterhorn on the back. The company will replace the iconic peak on its label with a more generic mountain due to changes in production.
Fabrice Coffini/AFP via Getty Images
The Toblerone chocolate bar is famous for its triangular top. But they will soon lose what is most famous: the image of the Matterhorn prominently displayed on their packaging.
Toblerone was created in the Swiss city of Bern in 1908 by Theodor Tobler, with a distinctive shape. inspire by his mountainous homeland and the Matterhorn in particular.
It has called itself made in Switzerland ever since — until now, thanks to strict national requirements as to which products can legally say so.
Mondelez, the American company that owns Toblerone, is moving part of production to Slovakia starting in July, in a move announced last year to cut costs.
That seems to violate”Swiss Act,” since 2017 has required products to meet certain criteria in order to use Swiss symbols (such as the Swiss cross) or to call themselves Swiss-made.
Those regulations are intended to protect the reputation and value of the coveted Swiss trademark, government explainedcites studies that show the added value of Swiss brands can account for as much as 20% of the selling price for some products — and up to 50% for luxury goods — compared to the value from other places. other.
When it comes food product Specifically, at least 80% of ingredients must come from Switzerland, for milk and dairy products it is 100%. The basic processing must also be done in the country, with a few exceptions (and Toblerone chocolate is clearly not one of them).
“For legal reasons, the changes we are making to our manufacturing operations mean that we need to adjust our packaging to comply with Swiss law,” a spokesperson said. by Mondelez told CNN.
That includes replacing the phrase “of Switzerland” with “founded in Switzerland” on the label and removing the iconic Swiss mountain that is its box decoration since 1970.
The company has yet to reveal its new design, but says it will still pay homage to its Alpine roots.
A spokesman for Mondelez told the Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung that the packaging will introduce a “streamlined and modernized mountain symbolism, in keeping with the geometric and triangular aesthetic.”
And the company told BBC that it will also feature “special new Toblerone typography and logos inspired by the Toblerone archive and include the signature of our founder, Tobler.”
“Bern is an important part of our history and will continue to be so in the future,” it added.
While it may come at a cost, the company said The decision to move production out of the country will help them produce “millions” more bars.
And the confectionery itself, a chocolate-honey-marzipan situation, seems to remain the same.
That’s not always the case: In 2016, UK customers slam the company to extend the distance between the vertices of the chocolate bar, a decision It says was made to combat the rising cost of components. It bring back its original form two years later.
