Toblerone chocolate could lose its iconic Swiss mountain logo because it won't be able to meet the country's standard of 'Swissness'
Ben Gabbe/Getty Images
- Toblerone is set to drop the iconic image of Switzerland's Matterhorn mountain from its packaging.
- That's because Mondelez, its US parent company, is moving some Toblerone production to Slovakia.
- Switzerland has laws regulating the use of national symbols and products claiming to be Swiss-made.
Six years after a disastrous modification to the shape of its chocolate bars, Toblerone is set to make yet another change — this time, it's looking to drop the iconic image of the Matterhorn mountain from its chocolate packaging.
Mondelez International Inc., the US parent company that owns the chocolate brand is moving some of Toblerone's production to Slovakia — which means the chocolate may not meet Switzerland's legal definition of "Swissness," according to Aargauer Zeitung, a Swiss media outlet that first reported the news on Friday.
In 2017, legislation to protect "Swissness" came into force which requires any food item marketing itself as being "made in Switzerland" to source 80% of its raw ingredients from the country.
Milk and dairy products labeled "made in Switzerland" need to source 100% of their raw materials from the country — although there are exceptions for raw materials that cannot be produced in Switzerland — such as cocoa, most of which comes from Africa.
The law also covers the use of Swiss symbols, including those that indicate geographical territory.
Toblerone's new branding will feature a "modernized and streamlined" logo instead of the Matterhorn's jagged outline, per Aargauer Zeitung. The Matterhorn debuted on Toblerone's packaging in 1970, according to its brand page.
It's also dropping "made in Switzerland" from its packaging. "We'll relaunch the Toblerone packaging from this summer, saying the brand was 'established in Switzerland,'" Livia Kolmitz, a Mondelez spokeswoman, told Reuters.
The imminent change to Toblerone's packaging comes after its controversial move in 2016 to reduce the weight of the bars in the UK by making the gaps between each triangular chocolate "peak" more prominent to cut costs. It reversed the move less than two years later.
Mondelez did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment sent outside regular business hours.