History of Gruyère AOC

The fight for its origin started when Switzerland joined the Madrid Agreement of April 14th 1891 which stipulates that any product bearing a wrong mark of origin on which one of the countries or a place of the country under this agreement is directly or indirectly mentioned as the country or place of origin, then such products shall be confiscated at the borders of each of the said country.

In 1926 at the International Dairy Congress in Paris a resolution was adopted which says that the names of cheeses derived from their places of origin, like Emmental, Gruyere, Parmesan, Roquefort, Camembert
and others, may only be used for goods produced in those areas, or else have to bear an annotation.

In 1926 at the International Dairy Congress
in Paris a resolution was adopted which says that the names of cheeses derived from their places of origin, like Emmental, Gruyere, Parmesan, Roquefort, Camembert and others, may only be used for goods produced in those areas, or else have to bear an annotation.

An international convention on the protection of marks of origin and standardized methods of analysis was signed on June 10th 1930 in Rome. Unfortunately, this strategically important decision was soon revoked by the French dairy organisation in Besançon on February 14th 1931.

On June 19th, 1931 Émile Savoy,  Member of Parliament for the canton of Fribourg, handed in an interpellation concerning the Convention of Rome (1930) and the mark of origin for cheeses in an effort to protect the Gruyere cheese. The MP put special emphasis on the protection of the various Gruyere marks so that the cheese would be able to maintain its long-standing and well-deserved reputation. In 1935 Bernard de Gottrau also stood up for the Gruyere cheese when he declared that the French claim, according to which the term "Gruyere" was of French origin, could not be substantiated.