Toblerone has announced a major change to its iconic packaging, a year after it was embroiled in a controversy over how ‘Swiss’ the chocolate is.
Last year, the company was banned from using the iconic image of the Swiss Matterhorn mountain peak on its packaging, after it announced it was moving production from Switzerland to Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia.
Having the mountain peak on the packaging would’ve violated the country’s Swissness Act, a piece of legislation passed in 2017 that bans national symbols and Swiss crosses from the packaging of products that that do not meet Swissness criteria.
But the company today said that it was investing 65million Swiss francs (£60million) into its manufacturing plant in Bern, the country’s capital.
With that, it revealed that the Swiss flag would soon adorn the packaging of Toblerone chocolates made in the country to emphasise the brand’s heritage.
‘Toblerone is one of the most famous chocolate brands in the world with tremendous potential,’ said Iain Livingston, President, Toblerone & World Travel Retail
He added: ‘Our centre of excellence in Switzerland, from where we proudly bring our brand and chocolate expertise around the world, is key to the brand’s growth ambition to win in the premium segment.’
Tim Spickenbaum, director of the production facility in Bern, adds: ‘Our plant has been a cornerstone of the Toblerone production for decades. Already today we manufacture on average 4 million Toblerone products per production day.
‘We are therefore delighted about the planned modernizations and investments, which will not only enhance our manufacturing capacity but also solidify Bern’s position as the home and heart of the triangular brand icon.’
The Swiss act specifies that edibles using Swiss national symbols or claiming to be ‘Swiss made’ must contain at least 80 per cent of the product’s raw materials come from Switzerland. This increases to 100 per cent for milk and dairy products.
Because of its production of chocolates outside of Switzerland, the company was last year forced to replace the words ‘of Switzerland’ with ‘established in Switzerland.’
Toblerone was invented in Switzerland by Theodor Tobler and Emil Baumann in 1908. ‘Toblerone’ is a play on words from the names ‘Tobler’ and ‘Torrone’, the Italian name for honey-almond nougat.