In the cosmetics industry

In 2017, new legislation came into force in Switzerland that had previously been going through all the political bodies and the press for years. This is the so-called SWISSNESS legislation - an ordinance at federal level that regulates what a product or the production of a product must fulfil in order to ultimately be marketed as a SWISS PRODUCT.
These conditions are not the same for all products. For example, a carrot is an agricultural product and the product must be grown in Swiss soil. The situation is similar for many products of the food industry. The situation is different for industrial products such as watches, chocolate or cosmetics.
Here it is less a question of the origin of the raw materials - the steel for watches does not come from Switzerland any more than certain active ingredients and additives in cosmetics - but of the origin of the engineering, production, quality control and further processing.
Swiss industrial products have such a good international reputation because these aspects lead to higher quality. Over the past 60 - 80 years, this quality has constantly developed and products of Swiss origin are objectively better in many respects than products from other countries.
However, this also has its price and so the consumer is willing to pay more for a Swiss product than for products from other countries. Many studies have shown that consumers today are willing to pay 20-30% more for a product from Switzerland.
This, in turn, has led to the Swiss cross becoming a seal of quality and many manufacturers around the globe using the Swiss origin unfairly to give their products a special veneer of quality and charge a higher price for them.
The Swissness Ordinance has now regulated the use of this geographical origin mark since 2017 and protects Swiss manufacturers from plagiarism from abroad. The legislation is also respected and implemented by other countries.
China, for example, withdrew around 270 brands with a misleading "Switzerland" designation of origin from circulation in 2017. In 2018, there were still 35 trademarks.
For ARVAL, this legislation has a direct impact, and we see on the market how sought-after Swiss origin is in our industry.
In day-to-day business, however, SWISSNESS is first and foremost an obligation:
The obligation to abide by the rules and to make customers aware that they must also abide by this legislation.
But the obligation is also to deliver the best Swiss quality and to send better products into the world - as further ambassadors of the unique Swiss quality.
This is exactly what we strive for, and this is what we work for every day, in our in-house development department, in our production, in our ready-to-wear clothing and in our quality assurance.
For a quality that deserves the Swiss seal of approval in the form of the Swiss cross!
Laboratoires Biologiques ARVAL SA
Thomas Früh, General Direktor
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