A New Name for Swiss Cheese 1927
WHEN IT’S REALLY SWISS CHEESE
SCANDALS in the Swiss Cheese Family, the reformers sadly admit, have made it almost as notorious as the Swiss Family Robinson. It is not merely that a ring of cheese around a hole bigger than a silver dollar, and filled in with mustard, as the New York Evening World complains, has done duty for years as a Swiss cheese sandwich. Worse remains to tell. There are so many good imitations of Swiss cheese that nobody can tell whether he is eating holes imported from Switzerland or from Kamchatka, from Norway or Wisconsin, from Berne or Boise, Idaho. It is with intent to clean up this particular scandal, we are told, that the Swiss makers of Swiss cheese in Switzerland have adopted a method of self-defense, as a result of which, from now on, if you wish to eat real Swiss cheese with imported holes, you will have to eat the kind with “Switzerland Cheese” stamped on the rind, for that is henceforth to be its official name.
As this is a free country, the Louisville Times admits it has hitherto supposed that the word “Swiss” could be applied ad libitum to “any group of holes surrounded by a lacework of hard slick cheese.” The time for such liberties, however, is now gone. As the Boston Transcript explains so clearly, “Swiss cheese” from this time forth will be any kind but Swiss. Or, in the words of the St. Louis Times, the only genuine Swiss is “Switzerland.” It is a little confusing, but perhaps the following statement sent out from the office of the Consul General of Switzerland, in New York, will remove that dizzy feeling:
Swiss cheese made in Switzerland will hereafter be known as Switzerland cheese to distinguish it from the Swiss type of cheese imported from other European countries, and also made in America.
The change was made by the Switzerland Cheese Association, a cooperative society which comprises milk producers, cheese manufacturers and exporters in Switzerland, having the governmental right for the exportation of Swiss cheese. The new name has been recorded with the International Patent Union and the United States Patent Office, and will in future be stamped on the rind of the cheese.
The change of the name to Switzerland Cheese was made necessary because of increasing shipments to the United States of the Swiss type of cheese made in other European countries and sold as “imported Swiss cheese,” the public therefore being led to believe that such product was genuine Swiss. The new designation was chosen in order to protect the American consumer as well as the reputation of the cheese made in Switzerland.
These shipments last year amounted to 2,000,000 pounds; but as the name “Swiss cheese,” under which this particular type of product has become generally known, could not be copyrighted, the Switzerland Cheese Association was compelled to adopt a new name. The first shipment with the name Switzerland stamped on it arrived on September 1.
This development in the cheese world is interesting not Only to cheese-lovers but to all observers of sales methods, remarks the Chicago Journal of Commerce, continuing:
The Switzerland cheese industry was confronted by the fact that its product had gained such world-wide favor as to cause the manufacture of the same product in many other lands, all under the original Swiss name. Switzerland possest the cheese prestige but lacked much of the cheese business. How to turn its prestige into money was the problem.
And the problem was solved, probably by some bright advertising man who suggested a new name, which should be distinctively Swiss and yet should not be the word “Swiss,” and which should be protectable against infringement. Probably Switzerland’s cheese industry will make millions of dollars in the long run by the use of this simple sales idea.
Dairy communities throughout the United States are discussing the subject. One Wisconsin paper, the Mt. Horeb Times, cries in alarm that “the whole State of Wisconsin has been beaten to it!” It goes on to say:
The importance of this move can not be ignored by the State of Wisconsin if we want to remain the center of the cheese industry. The only way to do is to produce the finest quality cheese, then by judicious advertising convince the public that we can produce a better product, and so have the preference on the market. The power of an advertising campaign conducted along proper lines is a tremendous molder of public favor. We must get busy and hold the business at home.
Ohio, which has developed a consider-able industry in Swiss cheese making, takes the matter more philosophically. “Swiss cheese may be really Swiss only when abroad,” says the Columbus State Journal, “but the American Swiss has many friends, and doubtless will retain its popularity.” We read further:
Hereafter the imported cheese will bear the brand of Switzerland and be sold under that name, to mark more clearly the distinction between imported and home products. The foreign makers insist no one in this country can make real Swiss cheese. But the fact remains that for years men in America have been making it. The trade likes it, sales are increasing, and chemists find little real difference in the two products.
Source: The Literary Digest for October 15, 1927
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