Swiss cheese exports rose by 9.4 per cent to more than 23,000 tons in the first quarter. In terms of varieties, Gruyère and Emmentaler grew more strongly, while the development of Appenzeller was stable, according to a spokeswoman. The quarterly figures confirm the trend from the previous year.

David Escher, Managing Director of SCM, is optimistic about the future. "The bottom seems to have been reached. The environment remains difficult, but if the economy in Europe continues to grow and the euro-franc exchange rate remains stable, the signs point to a positive export trend, as the first few months of 2018 have shown."

A niche player in terms of budget

SCM's European branches also developed a whole range of new measures last year to encourage consumers to buy Swiss cheese. With 232 different main activities - for example Swiss Weeks, the Tour del Gusto, various blogger cooperations or the trade fair appearance at the SIA in Paris - over 13.7 billion advertising contacts were generated, according to the press release. Competition on the global cheese market is fierce and SCM is a niche player with a total budget of CHF 46.7 million, writes the marketing organization. In Germany and France alone, the competition invests many times more in advertising.

In this highly competitive market, it is not easy to attract the attention of consumers, but 98% of SCM's activities in the reporting year met or exceeded expectations. Thanks to typical core values such as excellent Swiss milk, traditional production and a long tradition, Swiss cheese stands out from the competition. (hae/pd/SDA)

The results of a survey conducted by Switzerland Cheese Marketing and published in the current issue of SonntagsZeitung are surprising: in France, cheese from the Netherlands and Italy is rated better than that from Switzerland. And the number of people in Germany and Italy who rate the quality of Swiss cheese better than products from other origins is also decreasing every year - in France, the proportion has fallen from 32% to 23% (2016) since 2013. In Germany, too, the quality of Dutch cheese is rated higher than that of Swiss products.

Martin Sparh, Head of Marketing at Switzerland Cheese Marketing, denies that Swiss cheese has an image problem - but points out that marketing budgets in this country are too low. These are much higher for foreign cheeses.

And yet the effort would be necessary. Sales abroad are stagnating and the well-known cheeses suffered export losses in the first half of the year. European competitors are exploiting the price level of Swiss products and pursuing an aggressive pricing policy, according to Switzerland Cheese Marketing.

"Interchangeable and emotionless"

However, experts do not want to blame the problem on the strong franc alone. Cheese merchant Rolf Beeler specifically criticizes cheese advertising to the SonntagsZeitung. Marketing abroad is "lousy", interchangeable and emotionless, he says. He is convinced that more stories need to be told - as has been achieved with hay milk cheese in Austria, for example. "The variety organizations need to get their act together to improve the image of Swiss cheese," he demands.

Watch manager Jean-Claude Biver also sees the problem in marketing. Switzerland is too modest in this respect. The French are more successful because they know how to achieve higher prices thanks to good marketing and thus give their cheese more prestige overall, according to the head of the LVMH watch group.

However, in order to advertise quality and justify higher prices, this must be guaranteed. "Cheese pope" Rolf Beeler, for example, criticizes the fact that Emmentaler and Sbrinz are often exported far too young. Sales of Emmentaler have fallen by 40 percent since 2006. Small specialty producers, on the other hand, have no sales problems. (hae)