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Mr. Tobler, how’s life as the grandson of chocolate baron Theodor Tobler?
Andrew Tobler: When I was growing up, Toblerone wasn’t a big deal. We did not visit the factory, nor did we eat the chocolate every day. On the contrary: my father loved the black Lindt Crémant best. All I owned was a toy VW bus marked Toblerone.
We stop in front of your grandfather’s old house in Bern’s Länggass district. One night 115 years ago, pot lids and whisks rattled here, and a sweet smell came from the window.
In this kitchen, my grandfather and cousin Emil Baumann were fixing milk chocolate and almond nougat in 1908…
It sticks really well between your teeth.
… and invented the Toblerone recipe. But it’s an anecdote, my grandfather never wrote about Toblerone.
Why triangle shape? Isn’t that pretty practical?
Yes completely. Because it didn’t stack well, some retailers initially refused to stock Toblerone. It’s a bit cumbersome, but I think this suits Switzerland very well.
What kind of person was your grandfather?
She has been described as a colorful personality who loves cutting-edge dancing, so she was very daring. In 1899, he founded the Tobler chocolate factory with his father. He died in 1941 before I was born. When we vacated my grandmother’s house, many of her belongings came to light. A manuscript filled with old Tobler collector’s cards, boxes of chocolates and childhood memories.
Did that get you closer to him?
Yes, also through the books I wrote about Tobler with Patrick Feuz. There used to be distance, but as I researched and wrote, the past gradually surfaced. I was impressed by his innovative spirit and his ability to stand up to setbacks. This is a bittersweet story.
Before I got to this – what was the chocolate landscape like back then?
After Daniel Peter developed milk chocolate in 1875 and Rodolphe Lindt developed chocolate fondant in 1879, there was a real boom in Switzerland. By 1888 there were more than ten chocolate factories. That’s why you had to stand out from the competition with extraordinary products.
And make the chocolate triangle.
For example. There are several myths about the triangular shape of Toblerone. My grandfather told his sons that it occurred to him on a business trip to Paris while watching the can-can dancers bowing one after the other.
Aha!
Another suggestion is that the triangle itself borrows from Masonic symbolism, to which it participates. And of course there is inspiration from the Matterhorn. Back then, chocolate was often depicted with mountains to promote Switzerland as a pure natural landscape, and milk in chocolate as a healthy product.
You once wrote that legends are good for business.
Of course, the more legendary, the more legendary the product will be.
Since Toblerone will also be produced in Slovakia from July, the Matterhorn has to be out of the box. Do you think this is true?
Legally, with the Swissness Act this is clear. But the shout took me by surprise. After all, the Matterhorn has only been on the packaging for nearly 50 years – before that there was an eagle and before that a bear. Toblerone reminds me more of any Alpine chain. The new logo resembles the tip of a sneeze.
But the Matterhorn symbolizes Switzerland much more than any other mountain.
Yes, two important symbols of Switzerland come together in the current debate: Matterhorn and chocolate. That’s probably why people react so emotionally. However, it should be noted that Toblerone has also been produced for years in Germany, England and South America. They have only been produced in Switzerland since 1990.
Chocolate, the Matterhorn, the banking crisis, neutrality during the war: Swiss identity is not having an easy time right now.
Yes, this is on the verge of an identity crisis, but it’s nothing new. There was a similar protest in 1995. Chocolate should be allowed to consist of 5 percent other fats such as palm oil, it no longer needs to be 100 percent cocoa butter. The population was enraged – an attack on the purity of chocolate! Hundreds of thousands of signatures were collected in a very short time to puncture the planned change in the food regulation. Unsuccessful.
Why is something as delicious as chocolate so emotional?
Because we are very proud of them. Many Swiss bring chocolate to their friends abroad, including Toblerone.
Me too, until I realized that you can find Toblerone and Lindt in every supermarket in most countries.
Definitely. Toblerone has been around the world for a long time. But let’s walk a few meters to the university just around the corner.
Does college have anything to do with chocolate, too?
And how! Unitobler used to be the Tobler chocolate factory.
Toblerone – where does the name actually come from?
A pun on Tobler and Torrone, which means nougat in Italian. Urs Berger, interested in the history of chocolate brands, recently learned that the House of Frey had registered a chocolate bar called Freyone as early as 1904.
Wasn’t that why there were no complaints?
No, we knew that (laughing). Other companies already had Torrone or triangle-wrapped chocolate—but only for chocolate powder.
Why did Toblerone of all people achieve world success with cult status?
Nails and almond nougat were new, and advertising was a highlight. As early as 1903, business reports reported that a lot of money had to be invested in advertising. My grandfather had many original ideas. He made an early form of celebrity endorsement, having Toblerone distributed in London, shipping promotional slides as far as Australia.
Your book “100 Years Toblerone” says that Bern is overflowing with posters. Everyone arriving in town by train first passed the eighty Toblerone posters.
Yes, all companies were doing this back then, especially on enamel signs. It was called the “tin plague”.
Shall we sit in the canteen?
Satisfaction. See the library next door? This used to be the inner courtyard of the chocolate factory.
You said you had never visited the factory before.
No, or much later, when it was turned into a university. There was a New Year’s party that I celebrated enthusiastically.
When you were a kid, didn’t you brag when your grandfather invented Toblerone? I remember bragging about the fact that my mother grew up in DJ Bobo’s neighboring village.
No, I never hung it on the big bell. Maybe we suppressed it a bit, after all we lost such a show. Toblerone was almost ending in 1931, the Tobler company was in financial difficulties. Leadership has been changed. Although my grandfather later founded the successful Typon company and took over a candy factory, he never quite got over the loss of his life’s work.
Have you reconciled yourself to that fate since then?
I think so, studying family history extensively. I also completed my education here at Unitobler. So you can say the circle is closed.
Source : Blick
I am Dawid Malan, a news reporter for 24 Instant News. I specialize in celebrity and entertainment news, writing stories that capture the attention of readers from all walks of life. My work has been featured in some of the world’s leading publications and I am passionate about delivering quality content to my readers.
