Many aspects of Swiss economic activities used to be highly regulated, from cheese exports to car imports, even book prices. Even today, many international brands force Swiss retailers to get their products at inflated prices from a Swiss subsidiary.

Today, there is indeed a much greater variety of cheeses in Switzerland. In addition to the very restricted number of cheeses supported by the Cheese Union, a big problem was that it forced the production of enormous quantities of Emmental Cheese, which has a rather peculiar flavor which was increasingly out of favor with customers.