What effect does the “Swissness” bill have on information regarding the country of production for food products?
Article 20 of the Federal Law on Food Products (Food Products Act, German (pdf, 519 KB) or in French (pdf, 595 KB)) stipulates that whoever provides food products must inform the consumer of the origin (country of production). Unlike under European law, this requirement also applies even if there is no risk of misleading the consumer without disclosing this information. The Federal Council decided to examine if the regulations on indications of source (the Trademark Law, see question 14) can apply in parallel to those in the Food Products Act. The aimed coexistence of these legal regulations does not mean that the new, more specific criteria determining source can be circumvented by police measures in the special legislation, such as the definition of the country of production in the Food Products Act. For example: Honey constituted from raw materials from 15 different countries and mixed together in Switzerland may not be designated as Swiss honey according to the criteria of source u
