Are Protected Geographical Indications Evolving Due to Environmentally Related Justifications? An Analysis of Amendments in the Fruit and Vegetable Sector in the European Union

Abstract

Protected designations of origin (PDO) and Protected geographical indications (PGI) in the European Union have been recognized through a sound legal framework for more than three decades. We are recently witnessing an increased number of amendments to the product specifications of registered PDO/PGI. This paper aims to understand how PDO/PGI for the fruit and vegetables product class have evolved. Until 31 December 2018, there were 379 PDO/PGI registered under the fruit and vegetables product class and 81 amendments approved. We designed a coding guideline to: (i) analyze all the amendments to the product specifications; (ii) identify the type of rules that were modified; (iii) find out whether the amendments resulted in more flexible or more restrictive rules, and (iv) the respective justifications given by producers. We designed a database to manage all the information. Overall, amendments brought more flexible rules (particularly in Italy and Spain), while France showed a more diversified situation. Concerning the justifications stated by producers for amending the product specification, market changes, available new technology, and strengthening product quality were the most important, while environmental concerns were less relevant. Then, we in-depth analyzed the amendments that were explicitly justified with environmental reasons. The analysis showed only a light movement towards more environment-friendly rules, although environmental justifications were often used “indirectly”, as a means to achieve better marketing competitiveness, meeting new market demand and reducing production costs. These results seem consistent with previous studies, which indicated market forces as a primary motivation to amend product specifications.

Product Qualification as a Means of Identifying Sustainability Pathways for Place-Based Agri-Food Systems: The Case of the GI Corsican Grapefruit (France)

“…Being more lenient about the visual aspect to reduce the proportion of discarded fruit could be a lever for encouraging eco-friendly practices such as organic farming. This idea has been observed for other French fruits and vegetables under GI [47]. Corsican citrus stakeholders have already done it with their flagship product: they were able to convince chain stores to sell a smaller, slightly green, and more acidic clementine in a world where big, orange, and sweet prevail [1].…”

“…Stakeholders cannot, therefore, guarantee that the GI Corsican grapefruits are more environmentally friendly than conventional ones. As is the case with many GIs in Europe [47][48][49], the impression of naturalness is an intangible factor that is not actually associated with any explicit eco-friendly rule written in the CoP. Though GIs are often viewed as more environmentally friendly, this is not their core purpose.…”

Impact of the SARS-CoV-2 on the Italian Agri-food Sector: An Analysis of the Quarter of Pandemic Lockdown and Clues for a Socio-Economic and Territorial Restart

“…distillation for wines). The possible areas of intervention concerning the management of agri-food markets involve managing the supply of quality products via the protection consortia and producer organisations (not only for PDO and PGI, but also for other geographical indications and traditional specialties, including the national systems of labelling and protecting Italian wines DOC and DOCG for their Designation of Controlled and Guaranteed Origin, and the Indication of Geographical Typicality or IGT for food products) and supply chain contracts within the food industry [7][8][9][10][11]. All this should be supported by innovative digital-selling channels [12] and global monitoring tools of the supply chain [13].…”

Between Tradition and Sustainable Innovation: Empirical Evidence for the Role of Geographical Indications

“…We argue that both classifications are required to analyze GI case studies since GIs, as social-ecological systems, are multi-dimensional. Marescotti et al (2020) examined the amendments of PS to find evidence of changes related to the environment. They give the example of Cerezas de la Montaña de Alicante PGI, which introduced new varieties in order to cope with climate change (Marescotti et al, 2020).…”

“…Marescotti et al (2020) examined the amendments of PS to find evidence of changes related to the environment. They give the example of Cerezas de la Montaña de Alicante PGI, which introduced new varieties in order to cope with climate change (Marescotti et al, 2020). This innovation can be classified in category one from Lundvall (2010), "new products" as well as Nuvolari and Tartari (2014) classification of "biological innovations".…”