“For legal reasons, the changes we’re making to our manufacturing mean we need to adjust our packaging to comply with Swissness legislation. We have removed our Swissness claim from the front of the Toblerone pack and changed our description ‘of Switzerland’ to ‘established in’,” a Mondelez spokesperson told CNN.
Under Switzerland’s Swissness Act, which passed in 2017, national symbols and the Swiss cross are not permitted on products that don’t meet “Swissness” criteria.
The act requires food products claiming to be “Swiss-made” to be produced with 80% of their raw materials sourced from Switzerland, increasing to 100% for milk and dairy products. Essential processing must be also be done in the country, with exceptions for natural products that cannot be sourced from Switzerland, such as cocoa.
Mondelez’s new packaging includes “a distinctive new Toblerone typeface and logo” and the signature of Theodor Tobler, the spokesperson added. Tobler created the chocolate bar in 1908 together with his cousin Emil Baumann, according to the Mondelez website.
“Bern is an important part of our history and will continue to be so for the future,” the spokesperson said.
The “Swissness” legislation aims to protect the value of the Swiss label, according to the website.