Toblerone is set to undergo an image change as it will no longer be able to use the Matterhorn mountain on its packaging.
Mondelez International, which makes the chocolate, is moving production out of Switzerland and, thanks to a rule appropriately named the Swiss Act, it will no longer be able to include the iconic Matterhorn on its logo.
The company will now use a ‘streamlined mountain logo’ instead - designed to mimic Toblerone’s unique triangular shape, Swiss newspaper Aargauer Zeitung reported.
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Under Switzerland's Swissness Act national symbols, or the county’s Swiss cross, are not allowed to be used on packaging unless they meet strict Swissness criteria.
The Swiss Act, which passed in 2017, specifies that any edible items using Swiss national symbols or claiming to be 'Swiss made' must have at least 80 percent of its raw materials from Switzerland. It’s even stricter for milk and dairy products, which have to be 100 percent Swiss.
A Mondelez spokesperson told Aargauer Zeitung: "The packaging redesign introduces a modernised and streamlined mountain logo that aligns with the geometric and triangular aesthetic."
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Toblerone’s packaging will also remove the ‘of Switzerland', replacing it with ‘established in Switzerland’ instead.
Toblerone had been produced in the Swiss city of Berne since 1908, but Mondelez announced last year that it would be moving production to Bratislava in Slovakia.
Back in 2018, people were shocked to see a ‘hidden bear’ in the Toblerone logo.
A Twitter user called Stephanie revealed that her nine-year-old son drew her attention to a ‘bear’ slap bang in the middle of the logo that she’d somehow managed to miss her whole life.
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In a post, she wrote: “My son had his first Toblerone today. ‘What’s the bear for?’ Me: ‘What bear?’
“I was today years old when I found out there’s a bear in the Toblerone logo.”
Now that I've seen it, I can’t unsee it.
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Turns out the sneaky bear is the symbol of Berne, so it makes sense he’d be included on the packaging, right?
Evidently though, the majority of us had never noticed the bear before, with the tweet receiving more than 27,000 likes and 6,500 retweets.
One person said: "I had never seen that!!! Your son is brilliant!"
Another added: "My god. I've been familiar with Toblerone for forty years and I'd never seen the bear (full disclosure: it took me a minute or two to find it after reading your tweet)."
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While a third person wrote: "I just blurted out, 'Did anyone know about the Toblerone bear?' And my son replied without raising his head, 'The one in the mountain? What about it?' They know things."
Topics: UK News, Food And Drink
Claire Reid