Protected Designations: Protecting Regional Food Names

[Craig Camp]

The European Union is preparing a list of 35 food and wine names that it wants to restrict to producers in the EU, as part of a long-running battle over "geographical indications".

[Savour Chef]

I'm ALL for this.

For example, there's nothing worse than going out to buy Greek style feta. Give me a break. The only REAL feta comes from Greece. You might enjoy eating French feta, Bulgarian feta etc. etc., but I firmly believe it should be LABELED as such and not just passed as "feta".

Hope it happens.

[mcdowell]

For example, there's nothing worse than going out to buy Greek style feta.  Give me a break.  The only REAL feta comes from Greece. 

I'm not sure I'd agree in the feta case (nor did they, since the article talked specifically about Greeks being upset that some of their food wasn't on there - they want Kalamata olives and Ouzo included). There's some good feta out there that's never been near Greece.

There are foods that are regionally identified and grown natively that I'd agree with limiting the name for, and many, many more that I wouldn't. I stop agreeing at the point where it crosses the line from being a product that is affected by environment (as many cheeses can be) to being a product that is simply "manufactured" in a region.

Still, I could see the value of boudin only being called boudin if it's made in Acadia, Louisiana, as I've had some terrible examples made elsewhere. But where do you draw the line - wouldn't a sausage maker who transplants himself to San Francisco and starts making boudin make it just as good, the lack of Atchafalaya swamp water not withstanding, not be able to call it what it is?

This essentially copyright for food name, not an area that I think has been greated explored in the context of copyright and intellectual property law. Interesting stuff.

[Adam Balic]

I'm ALL for this. 

For example, there's nothing worse than going out to buy Greek style feta.  Give me a break.  The only REAL feta comes from Greece.  You might enjoy eating French feta, Bulgarian feta etc. etc., but I firmly believe it should be LABELED as such and not just passed as "feta".

Hope it happens.

The Greeks may make the best Feta type cheese, but I'm not sure it entitles them to the name. Some Feta type cheese is obviously produced in countries that have never had a history of producing it (Denmark for instance), but this is not always the case. Feta is a old type of cheese, made in a number of places historically, so other countries apart from Greece have a historic claim on it.

'Kalamata' is another tricky one, as it is both the name of a regional type and the variety of the olive.

[cdh]

This essentially copyright for food name, not an area that I think has been greated explored in the context of copyright and intellectual property law. Interesting stuff.

Not a copyright at all... this is pure trademark law, with a little bit of brand dilution theory thrown in.

The whole point of trademark law is to protect consumers from being misled by products attempting to pass themselves off as something else. The problem in this case comes from the usage of some of the words in issue... i.e. the English language does not have more than one word that conveys the idea of "Feta cheese".

Give it a try... come up with an alternate term that is less than a full sentence long to convey the idea of Feta cheese.

Champagne has dodged that bullet because "sparkling wine" is a perfectly usable alternate term that does not mislead consumers into thinking that they they're getting something from that particular region of France when, in fact, they're not.

This has actually been dealt with in international trademark treaties, and if I felt like digging around in my attic for my book of trademark treaties and laws, I could quote sections of them to you that deal with this very topic...

Edited July 25, 2003 by cdh (log)

[Savour Chef]

I'm not sure I'd agree in the feta case (nor did they, since the article talked specifically about Greeks being upset that some of their food wasn't on there -  they want Kalamata olives and Ouzo included). There's some good feta out there that's never been near Greece.

I understand the article wasn't talking about feta cheese specifically, but I used that as an example. (I also agree about the Ouzo and Kalamata olives though...guess it's the Greek in me).

That's the problem when you say that there's "good" feta out there. I'm not looking for "good" feta, I'm looking for "real" feta, which is outstanding, which can ONLY come from Greece. And, I'll be so bold as to state that no feta from anywhere else comes close to real Greek feta. It's a process, it's hundreds of years of experience, it's their milk, it's their animals, it's their specific environment. See where I'm going here?

I find it very dangerous when in a world of fast-food living, that just anyone can have a crack at making a food product and it being identified as "authentic".

Is nothing sacred?

[fresco]

A great deal of this involves common sense and being realistic. If you go to a supermarket and buy something billed as Greek style feta for a suspiciously low price, you should expect to go home with some foul crap made god knows where. If you go to a reputable Greek food store, you're likely to find a couple of different types of Greek feta, Bulgarian, domestic and maybe others.

One of the reasons for quite awful stuff like this is consumer demand that does not develop in tandem with consumer awareness and a sense of reality.

Have you seen some of the stuff that is passed off as balsamic vinegar for a couple of dollars a pint?

[Adam Balic]

I would guess that the Bulgarians have been making Feta for about the same amount of time as the Greeks.

By definition, nothing is 'authentic'. The Greeks may have a better product in most cases then the Bulgarians and they may want to seperate there product from association with mass produced commerical feta of Denmark, but at the end of the day they are just protecting a commerical interest and have no real right to insist that the Bulgarians change there cheese name.

If the Greeks were to use there clout to shut down production of an equally valid, if inferior, product then it really just bully tactics.

[fresco]

"If the Greeks were to use there clout to shut down production of an equally valid, if inferior, product then it really just bully tactics."

A better approach would be for Greek feta producers, or others with similar "authentic" products to spend some time and money telling people why their product is worth buying.

[328tina]

Enough about the feta already!

What about the use of place names like Champagne, Burgundy, etc.? Lots of people argue that it's "legal" for us to use those terms--and yes, it is--but is it misleading to consumers? Is it capitalizing on the reputation for quality built up by people in these regions for centuries? Me thinks so.

Yes, we do have the "sparkling wine" term here in the U.S., but some American producers refuse to use it because consumers perceive "Champagne" as being of better quality.

Would we let the Bulgarians call a wine Napa Cabernet? No way in hell, right? A Napa winery association is having a fit as we speak because a California wine producer outside of Napa uses the word in its brand names.

[mcdowell]

Haven't seen this in any mainstream press, but there's an article in the current Cheese Market News about the subject of EU's geographical indications & a hearing held in Congress this week about US producer's reactions.

[Katherine]

Still, I could see the value of boudin only being called boudin if it's made in Acadia, Louisiana, as I've had some terrible examples made elsewhere. But where do you draw the line - wouldn't a sausage maker who transplants himself to San Francisco and starts making boudin make it just as good, the lack of Atchafalaya swamp water not withstanding, not be able to call it what it is?

How about the area where I live, where the French-Canadian ethnic people have always made a sausage they call boudin? If you arbitrarily assigned the name "boudin" to a specific product made in Acadia, Louisiana, now they'd have a sausage with no name. They weren't trying to knock off some NO product, they just have a sausage with the name of boudin.

Does the fact that you find one example of a product more to your taste than other examples mean that you could decide that one was more authentic than any other and assign the name to that particular product above all the others?

[Bux]

I think distinctions have to be made between names that describe a certain kind of product, a range of products, and a place. It'a one thing to make cheese, it's another to make blue cheese and still something else to make Roquefort cheese. An attempt to secure the name boudin for a sausage made in Louisiana would not only be contested by French-Canadians, but by all of France where boudin noir and boudin blanc refer to blood sauasge and a white sausage not unlike weissewurst. "Arcadian boudin"could be worthy of protection as could "boudin Quebecois." Joe, who moves to San Francisco would have to earn a living selling "Joe's boudin." No one can say it's worse than what's made elsewhere by it's not entitled to carry the place name. There are many reasons other than the water, why a regional product might taste differently if made elsewhere. Of course the protection would make more sense if there was a local agency that oversaw production and ensured that certain standards were kept.

[Jason Perlow]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...es_030828153536

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The EU said it had agreed a list of well-known foodstuffs for which it wants trade-name protection at an upcoming WTO conference, a move likely to fuel strains with its global trade partners.

[Peter B Wolf]

Jason, see my post a bit earlier:

http://forums.egullet.org/show.php/act/ST/f/2/t/26939

[Gifted Gourmet]

The story

The European Union (news - web sites) has designated more than 40 of its most famous food and drink names -- including French champagne and prosciutto ham from Parma -- to protect the brands from foreign imitators.

While Mexicans consider chilies as much a part of their heritage as tequila, somberros and mariachi music, India, China, Argentina and the United States have pushed their way into the dried chili market and almost elbowed Mexico out.

Mexico -- which boasts 120 varieties of chili ranging from small green Serranos to sweat-inducing orange Habaneros and has been spicing up its food with them since time immemorial -- now ranks just fourth in the world market.

With the once-exotic condiment now a kitchen staple in many countries and dried chili exports booming, China is fighting India for the lead position.

And since Californian and Louisiana farmers started mass-producing bland versions of Mexican chilies adjusted to match the milder U.S. weather and tastes, the United States has been churning out more chilies than its neighbor to the south.

Think the Mexican farmers are correct?

Might this happen to all ethnic food products shortly? Your opinion?

[andiesenji]

I don't know how they would manage it. They could produce "proprietary" peppers but would have had to develop a separate individual strain and patent it.

There are a lot of patented peppers that have been developed here in the U.S. And there is no question that better farming methods have increaed the yields by a considerable amount.

I have driven through areas in Mexico where peppers were the main crop and also in New Mexico (around Hatch) where they are also raised in similar climate conditions. The yields in New Mexico are vastly superior because of the farming methods.

Things change all the time. Wisconsin is still known as "America's Dairyland" but now more cheese and other dairy products are produced in California. The state is much larger and has a climate that allows a great deal more use of the land. Then there is the wine production which is phenomenal. Even a "bad year" here produces huge crops.

Sometimes the restrictive laws of production that are so dear to the hearts of the French can be detrimental to the small land owners.

One friend who travels regularly to France has complained that so many farmers have uprooted ancient olive trees to make way for vineyards, that it is becoming difficult for her to find the small batch, home pressed oils that she loves so much.

[Boris_A]

"Switzerland’s biggest cheese export, Emmental, is set to be awarded the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) label."

News article

[cdh]

What exactly does this mean? What rights and duties attach when Protected Designation of Origin is granted. In what jurisdictions?

If this allows the Swiss to certify that certains cheeses are "real" Emmental, and conveys the exclusive right to use a certification mark, then that is great. If is makes it illegal for any other cheesemaker to use the word Emmental at all in relation to their cheese, then it is a terrible idea. Emmental has already slipped into a generic usage and has been there for years... trying to undo that with a wave of a legislative wand seems like naively wishful thinking at best.

Edited September 16, 2004 by cdh (log)

[bleudauvergne]

When it comes to certain products, it's pretty clear that knockoffs and cheap imitations that hop on the gravy train, and eventually become known in their parts as that product are all over the place, and something should be done to stop it. Look at Meunster Cheese in the states. Champagne. etc.

Something really should be done to protect the orignal product.

Then again you'd think that after a product exists for a certain amount of time and becomes a common name, they should have the right to keep using it. They're talking about a cheese with the name "Emmental" in Germany that has been made for over a hundred years, and it's clearly a completely different product from the original Swiss, but it doesn't claim to be Swiss.

I can certainly understand the Swiss perspective and their desire to protect the name. When I buy Emmental, I basically think I'm getting a product from a certain place and I know that type of cheese. If I saw a package of some industrial product that clearly wasn't the product I was expecting in an emmental, I'd pass it by and go look for the real thing.

The sad thing is that some people have never tried the original and they encounter one product and think it all is like that.

Jurisdiction is the big question. I think that if they protected "Swiss Emmental" it might be ok.

[Boris_A]

First, let the number speak:

Switzerland ranks 5th with production of Emmental, and at about 14% of the French production. Switzerland would be completely unable to satisfy even a minimal demand for true Emmental.

As far as I understand the process by now, they want to have the control over the name (why should the producers in the Bernese "Emmental" be in a less protected situation as "Parmigiano" or "Champagne" or "Napa").

In the interviews, the Swiss producer association talked about having more control over the stuff that's selled under the name Emmental. I think this is a legitimate approach to protect "common goods" from overexploiting by careless producers. A name like "Swiss Emmental " wouldn't be enough to avoid a quality dilution of Emmental.

It would be an insult for all the thenthousand of quality conscious people, who helped to develop this great product to watch Emmental produced by some highly industrialized process working with synthetic milk composed by some lactose, lecithin and vegetable fat.

And in the end, I see the whole thing correlated with the expanding claims of intellectual property.

Of course, the French with by far the largets production quotas are a bit nervous, but after prosecuting every mouse in this world for any name containing "Champ...", I'm sure they unterstand the issue.

[bleudauvergne]

Boris, from what I understand of the article, the PDO is sought only by the Swiss.

A quick search shows that three appelations with the term :Emmental are already protected in Europe under AOP (German?) Or IGP (Indications géographiques protégées) - Allgäuer Emmentaler (AOP) (Allemagne), Emmental de Savoie (IGP) (France) et Emmental français est-central (IGP) (France).

It will be interesting see how this plays out.

[Bill Poster]

Like Champagne, Kolsch is a term that can only be used if from that region(Cologne in this case).

But- I spotted that some companies outside Germany use the name. Is this ok?

Edited August 30, 2006 by Bill Poster (log)

[mtigges]

Lots of people make a product from redwine fortified with brandy and call it Port too. Despite the fact that it doesn't come from Porto.

(I think it's brandy, is that right?)

Oh well.

Personally, I think they should. I want to know if a beer is attempting to be a Kolsch. There's an excellent example from here in BC, and I may not have tried it had it not said that it is a Kolsch.

[jesskidden]

Like Champagne, Kolsch is a term that can only be used if from that region(Cologne in this case).

But- I spotted that some companies outside Germany use the name. Is this ok?

←

I don't know what non-German beers called "Kolsch" you're seeing in the UK, but the ruiling that only Cologne brewers can use the term is limited to the EU countries, so some US brewers use the term without any problems. (We are also home to many "Champagnes" made in California, New York, New Jersey, etc., "ESB's" (a term that exclusive to Fullers, IIRC. in the UK) from various breweries and, well, then there's that little matter of a beer called Budweiser than ain't from Budweis...).