Toblerone can no more claim itself to be Swiss-made, to change its design due to 'Swissness' rules

With its shift outside Switzerland, the chocolate brand will no more be able to use the iconic Matterhorn mountain in its packaging.

Mondelez (MDLZ) recently announced it will shift some manufacturing of the chocolate to the Slovakian capital of Bratislava.

“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, reports the American news channel.

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 told CNN.

According to the Mondelez website, the chocolate was created in 1908 by Theodor Tobler.