It has been reported that the Swiss chocolate brand, Toblerone, are moving some of their chocolate production out of Switzerland to Slovakia. However, what does this mean for the marketing material?
A Mondelez representative stated that there will be alterations made to their wrapping as they will need to comply with Swissness legislation. It was also stated that they have already extracted the Swissness claim from their chocolate packages and altered the description ‘of Switzerland’ to express that it was instead ‘established in’. The reason behind this is that under Swissness legislation, national logos and symbols are not acceptable on goods which don’t meet the Swissness threshold.
What is Swissness legislation?
As goods from Switzerland already have a known positive reputation for their domestically made products. The Swissness legislation was introduced to avoid entities from exploiting the value of Swiss-made products. Therefore, this prevents companies from improperly stating that their product are made in Switzerland.
What does the legislation require?
The legislation obliges manufactures who allege that their goods are made in Switzerland to meet the following threshold:
- 80% of their basic material to be obtained from Switzerland
- 100% of dairy products to be from Switzerland
- Processing of the good should be carried out in Switzerland (natural products that cannot be obtained from Switzerland are exempt)
How will this impact their trademark?
Mondelez stated that this change will result in them losing their trademark packaging along with the mountain image/brand on their package.
If you would like to discuss protection of your brand, please get in touch with the Trademarkroom team today.
