Milka, Toblerone, Sugus, UBS & Co.: These Swiss brands are not Swiss at all

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Is UBS a Swiss company? What about Toblerone? And the airline Switzerland? After three decades of globalization, there are many Swiss flagships and brands that symbolize Swissness but do not have Swiss shareholders, local managers, local content, and sometimes even a presence on Swiss soil.

It was recently revealed that the Lindt & Sprüngli Easter Bunny is produced exclusively at the German Lindt factory, revealing the gap between manufacturers’ perception and industrial reality. Although the 2017 Swissness legislation places limitations on the use of Swissness codes, the public is often mistaken and stuck with the symbol and memory. An overview of some of the cases of Swiss flagships in decline.

Toblerone and Milka American

Like Toblerone, Milka is a historic Swiss brand. Both fell into the hands of the American giant Kraft Foods 30 years ago. In 2012, the Chicago-based spinoff was acquired internationally by Mondelez. 9 percent of Mondelez is owned by the US mutual fund Vanguard, followed by giant BlackRock with 7.3 percent.

At Mondelez, symbols of Switzerland stand next to Toblerone and international brands such as Milka, Oreo, Cadbury or Côte d’Or. The rest is marketing. And in this area, the two Swiss brands used their history and the codes of Swissness to their advantage. Up to certain limits.

Carrying the image of the Matterhorn for a long time, Toblerone has been making its chocolate in Bern for 100 years. But for a year now, some of the traditional chocolate triangles with nougat stripes, such as Milka and Suchard, have been made in Slovakia. Globalization is forcing multinational companies to happily trade an average of 5720 euros per month with another country for 970 euros.

This change forced Toblerone to replace the Matterhorn with a more general peak: The Matterhorn, like the Swiss cross, is considered an indication of the product’s Swiss origin. Toblerone had to abandon the words “Swiss milk chocolate” on its packaging, just as Milka was no longer allowed to carry the inscription “Milk chocolate from the Alpine country”. The latter still plays with the codes of Swissness. The purple mark embodied by a Swiss Simmenthal breed cow uses not only milk from Alpine countries against the background of an Alpine relief. Evidence that Swissness legislation nevertheless shows a certain flexibility.

Sugus belongs to Mars

The fate of the legendary Sugus, a Neuchâtel invention of Suchard, will also be determined in Chicago. The soft candy went to Kraft Foods in 1993 and was acquired by the American company Wrigley in 2005 and was swallowed by Mars in 2008.

Today, Sugus ranks alongside Skittles and M&Ms on Mars candy shelves and annual reports. The Mars Wrigley confectionery division has factories in the United States, England, Australia, mainland China and Taiwan. As such, Sugus is not allowed to wear a Swiss cross and claim to be any other “Swiss” by origin.

As with Ovomaltine and Cenovis (which no longer contain any Swiss ingredients), the legend lives on: an inventory of all three of Switzerland’s culinary heritage, brought to life in 2004 by an association at Lausanne VD. However, this is primarily about tradition and memory, which differs from the legal requirements and associated business benefits required today for wearing Swiss symbols.

Ovaltine is English

A 100% Bernese invention based on malted barley, Ovomaltine is owned by the Bernese group Wander, formerly Novartis and owned by British Associated British Foods for 20 years. With it, the Ovaltine, Isostar and Caotina crossed the English Channel.

The brand, which used a white cross on a red background for a period of time, was no longer allowed as of 2017. Today, some of the Ovaltine is still made in Bern, while the rest is produced at the British owner’s factories in Thailand and China. For many international companies, having to use more than three-quarters of materials from Switzerland will drastically reduce their profit margins. This is also the case with Cenovis.

DSM Firmenich 65.5 percent Dutch

Large companies representing Switzerland, and in this case Geneva, are weakening ties with Helvetia by merging with partners outside of Switzerland, with the goal of reaching an increasingly critical audience.

In 2007, Serono, the former bright star of the Geneva biotech industry, was acquired by German giant Merck. In 2012, just five years later, Merck closed its Serono plant at the end of Lake Geneva. In 2023, Geneva-based chemicals’ flagship Firmenich merged with Dutch giant DSM, which now owns 65.5 percent of the combined company, while Firmenich owns 34.5 percent.

The new headquarters are in Aargau, no longer in Geneva and the group is listed on the Euronext exchange in Amsterdam. Members of the Firmenich family will become a minority in the new company, with ambitions to become global champions, and three of the twelve international members of the Board of Directors will be Swiss. Current management is Dutch (CEO) and international (Executive Committee Members). The Swiss identity is yet another brand that will form a much more international whole.

UBS in the hands of foreign organizations

In March 2023, Credit Suisse, a 200-year-old bank on the verge of bankruptcy, was swallowed up by another Swiss banking player, UBS. Originally, the S in UBS referred to Switzerland. But who owns UBS today? Predominantly large US institutional investors, who own 14.4 percent of the capital’s capital, according to the 2022 annual report.

Giant BlackRock ranks first with 5.23 percent capital, followed by Dodge & Cox, Massachusetts Financial Services Company and Artisan Partners (3 percent each). It is followed by the Norwegian central bank with 3 percent.

Overall, these large institutional investors disclosed in the report own 17.4% of UBS. The shareholder base is highly international, as the remaining shareholders each own less than 3 percent of the shares (below this threshold, the share does not need to be disclosed) and the stock is listed on both the Swiss Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. but the majority are not Swiss. In addition, less than 30 percent of the new UBS Executive Board and Board members are Swiss citizens.

Switzerland is German

The once perfect symbol of Swissness is now Switzerland, a subsidiary of a German group. Swiss International Air Lines is owned by Germany’s Lufthansa, Europe’s largest airline, headquartered in Cologne. The new Swiss airline was formed from the ruins of former Swissair and Crossair, which had bought their sisters on the other side of the Rhine in 2005. Swiss’s current CEO, Dieter Vranckx (50), will be surrounded by an executive committee made up of Belgian and senior executives from Lufthansa.

Headquartered in Basel, Swiss’s current Board of Directors is predominantly Swiss. Despite Swiss’s apparent autonomy, Cologne has the final word on the Swiss subsidiary. Lufthansa is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. German Kühne Aviation, which is a major shareholder in its capital, holds 15 percent of the capital according to the 2022 annual report.

Source :Blick