
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 26, 1990                   TAG: 9006260094
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: HANNS NEUERBOURG ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: GENEVA                                LENGTH: Medium

TOBLERONE TAKEOVER LEAVES SWITZERLAND WITH WRY AFTERTASTE

The American invasion of Switzerland's chocolate industry has left a bitter taste among some Swiss, pioneers of the confection and statistically its biggest eaters.

Comments range from sadness to indignation in the wake of Philip Morris Companies Inc.'s announced $3.8 billion acquisition of Jacobs Suchard, makers of the two top Swiss brand names, Toblerone and Milka.

Throughout this century, Toblerone, with its typical triangular shape, and violet-wrapped Milka have been synonyms of "Schokoladenschweiz" - chocolate Switzerland.

"It is almost as if a Swiss entrepreneur would buy Ford," the weekly Zurich Sonntagszeitung editorialized after Philip Morris, the world's biggest consumer products conglomerate, announced it would buy the world's third biggest chocolate and coffee group.

"Milka cow is grazing on Marlboro Ranch," headlined the Basler Zeitung, in reference to one of Philip Morris' cigarette brands. And at Toblerone's hometown of Bern, the Bund newspaper predicted "popular indignation at the loss of this `piece of Switzerland' will be great."

"Although Toblerone and Milka continue to be made in Switzerland, they will be part of an anonymous conglomerate with controls in the United States," it stated.

Even the staid Zurich financial newspaper, Finanz und Wirtschaft, said the takeover would stir strong emotions in Switzerland, where chocolate rivals watches, cheese and bank secrecy as the country's chief image makers.

Emotions are not cooled by the fact that Suchard's owner, Klaus Jacobs, is a native of Germany. Polls consistently show that Germans are Switzerland's least-loved neighbors.

Jacobs was the first foreigner to move into the Swiss chocolate industry, which is one of the world's leading chocolate exporters. Sales last year totaled about 40,000 tons to more than 130 countries, with another 60,000 tons consumed domestically.

Switzerland supposedly is its own biggest consumer, at 25 pounds per capita annually. But the figure may be misleading because it includes purchases by tourists in Switzerland. Other leading buyers last year were West Germany, France, Britain, Austria and the United States, in that order.

by CNB