Originally published at: Toblerone chocolate bars loses its Swiss status and must chuck the Matterhorn from its packaging | Boing Boing
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To be fair, they should have lost it for this atrocity:
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Is this just a thing the company will have to do if the company wants to continue selling their product in Switzerland, or is there some legal mechanism/trade agreement that can be used to enforce this edict internationally?
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I noticed that when I was in the supermarket on Saturday. It’s not so much the Matterhorn that I noticed, but the Bear was not there. If you look closely at the old motif, there is a bear silhouetted on the mountain. No Bear. The Bear is important. I would have thought they could show a different mountain and still have a bear. Maybe not the same bear but some kind of bear. Heigh ho. I’ve not been to Switzerland and would not recognise the Matterhorn. Unless it really did have a Bear silhouetted on the snow.
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)Little by little min maxing cost cutting and sustaining brand identity until Toblerone becomes another blurry JPG that is evocative of something from your childhood.
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The EU (which switzerland is not part of but has adopted many trade agreements with) have pretty strict food origin laws EU wide, and in general food labeling / origin laws are some of the most significant parts of almost any international trade agreement.
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AFAIK there is some degree of automatic recognition between member countries of WIPO.
Toblerone is tourist bait. If you visit, get stuff from Cailler, Sprüngli, Lindt or Läderach
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Many millions of people who haven’t been there are still familiar with its signature profile from another context.
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Sounds like it will still be there. Maybe you saw some temporary logo?
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The NPR article says that Toblerone has yet to unveil its new design, but the picture at the top of the article appears to show it. You can see that the new logo is a roughly equilateral triangle shaped mountain and not the iconic Matterhorn profile. It still incorporates the hidden bear though.
If you want to compare the two different logos:
The new one is on the yellow box, and the classic Matterhorn logo on the black box.
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Has been swallowed by Nestle, who are probably even worse than Kraft-Mondelez.
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I dunno, but I suspect for things like the Swiss flag and maybe the Matterhorn, that the country has foreign trademarks filed?
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As noted, Toblerone was gobbled up by Mondelez (formerly known as Kraft). They have been buying European chocolate makers and ruining them for as long as I can remember. One of the first things they do is order the newly acquired companies to reduce the amount of expensive ingredients and use sugar, which is cheaper and also fools customers.
They did it to Milka.
They did it to Toblerone.
They are doing it to Cadbury.
Mondelez is a sure guarantee that the chocolate you used to like will soon be sugary shit.
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No swissness means no symbol recognizable as swiss (the cross, the matterhorn, william tell, etc.) It’s probably enforceable through WIPO.
My Bernina sewing machine (produced in Thailand before this legislation came into force) looks similar ti this:
This is an ungodly expensive current model
and this is a more affordable current model
Note that the swiss flag is missing.
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OMG it’s candy.
Make up a mountain.
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The bear is part of the coat of arms of Bern. Thay couldnt really keep Bern’s bear if they weren’t making the chocolate there anymore.
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Maybe the US consumers won’t have to deal with this.
There is precedent for blithely ignoring such claims
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