Following the uproar caused when it was forced to ditch its iconic Matterhorn logo back in 2023, food company Mondelēz has confirmed that Toblerone will be adorned with Swiss symbols once again. To do this, the company is due to invest millions of francs on expanding its factory in Bern.
In this case, our story starts in March 2023, when it was revealed that the Swiss chocolate brand Toblerone would be forced to ditch its Matterhorn logo in July of the same year. At the time, all Toblerone chocolate was made in a factory in Bern, but with salaries increasing and production at capacity, parent company Mondelēz decided to start producing the product in Slovakia.
While it may have made good business sense, the decision fell foul of the “Swissness Act” passed by the government in 2017. This states that if a product wants to use the Swiss flag, crosses, historical sites, mountains, lakes and other landmarks in its logo or branding, 80 percent of the product must be made with Swiss-sourced materials (cocoa is an exception) and the “essential work” to build the product must be done in Switzerland.
Therefore, with production beginning overseas, Toblerone had to replace its 53-year-old Swiss Matterhorn logo with an artificially generated mountain. It was also forced to change the description on the packaging from “of Switzerland” to “established in Switzerland”. This caused a major uproar in Switzerland itself and made global headlines. There was even talk in 2024 that the company would stop using Swiss milk in bars shipped abroad.
Now, Mondelēz has announced a U-turn on its plans to move production to Slovakia. Instead, the company will spend 65 million francs on expanding its plant in Bern, by adding a new production line and modernising the site. "This is one of the most important investments in Mondelēz International's European chocolate production network in the last 10 years," the company’s Switzerland manager Anna van Riesen told 20 Minuten.
“We are seeing growing global consumer demand for premium chocolate. We are convinced that Toblerone's potential is far from exhausted,” she added. The new facility will be ready by the autumn of this year.
With 90 percent of Toblerone bars set to be made in Switzerland, the iconic wedge-shaped chocolate will soon be adorned with Swiss symbols once more. Though the Matterhorn logo is consigned to the history books, each bar will soon be adorned with a Swiss flag.
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