Toblerone Must Drop Iconic Mountain From Its Packaging

Due to 'Swissness' legislation
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 6, 2023 3:15 AM CST
Toblerone Has a Very Swiss Reason for Changing Design
In this photo illustration, two bars of the Toblerone Swiss chocolate are shown. At front is the new style 150 gram bar showing the reduction in triangular pieces, in the background is the older style 360 gram bar, pictured in London, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016.   (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

For more than a half-century, Toblerone has featured an image of the Matterhorn on its triangular chocolate bar packaging. But no more: Due to so-called "Swissness" legislation introduced in Switzerland in 2017, the company will soon no longer be allowed to utilize Swiss iconography such as the well-known mountain that bears a very similar shape to a Toblerone chocolate bar.

As the Guardian explains, under the law, any food items desiring to use the Swiss flag or certain other imagery in their packaging, or to market themselves as "made in Switzerland," must source 80% of the raw ingredients in the country and carry out most of the processing there. For milk-based products, 100% of the ingredients that can be sourced in Switzerland must be (so there is an exception for cocoa, which cannot be). Toblerone will soon be moving some of its production from Switzerland to Slovakia, the BBC reports.

Toblerone was founded in Switzerland in 1908, but US company Mondelez bought it in 2012. "The packaging redesign introduces a modernized and streamlined mountain logo that aligns with the geometric and triangular aesthetic,” a Mondelez spokesperson said, adding that the packaging will now say “established in Switzerland" instead of “of Switzerland." The company says the new packaging will also include a "distinctive new Toblerone typeface and logo that draw further inspiration from the Toblerone archives and the inclusion of our founder, Tobler's, signature." (More Mondelez International stories.)

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