How are food Geographical Indications evolving? – An analysis of EU GI amendments

Abstract

Purpose The protection of Geographical Indications (GIs) supports producers to define common quality standards while highlighting the geographical origin of food products with specific qualities. Adaptations of quality standards are driven by international competition, new production technologies or environmental change. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the modifications affecting European Union (EU) Protected Designation of Origin-Protected Geographical Indication. It specifically compares the share of amendments in diverse product class, years and countries, illustrates specific cases and identifies the factors explaining the probability to amend product specifications. Design/methodology/approach Official documents of the DOOR Database provide the material for an analysis of changes in product specifications. They also supply the data for four illustrative cheese cases and a logistic regression of all EU amendments. Findings Amendments of GI product specifications are very frequent: 17 per cent of all 1,276 EU GIs had at least one amendment. This happens in particular for processed products (42 per cent more often than for unprocessed ones) and specific countries (GIs in Italy are six times, Spain five times and France four times more likely to have an amendment compared to GIs from other EU countries). As illustrated by contrasting cheese amendments, the diverse modifications in the product specifications range from more flexibility and innovation on the one hand to stricter rules for strengthening the product’s identity on the other hand. Originality/value For EU and national authorities, GI producers and scholars, this first systematic EU-wide analysis of amendments demonstrates that protected food GIs have to be conceptualised as evolving institutions and not as statically protected food production systems.

Social Learning in Food Quality Governance – Evidences from Geographical Indications Amendments

“…The geographical area of production together with collectively defined production rules are the crucial assets for product differentiation (Barham and Sylvander 2011;Rangnekar 2004). To sustainably cope with future challenges and to survive in the globalized food system, producer groups have to adapt their production rules (Baritaux et al 2016;Belletti et al 2015;Bérard et al 2016;Clark and Kerr 2017;Conneely and Mahon 2015;Quiñones-Ruiz et al 2018). Mancini (2013) argued that GIs would vanish without collective innovation.…”

“…production rules and standards defined by local producers, may require adaptation due to changes in climatic conditions (Clark and Kerr 2017), market evolution, technological developments or newly implemented policies (Bérard et al 2016;Conneely and Mahon 2015). Therefore, producers need to apply for an amendment of the Product Specification (Quiñones-Ruiz et al 2018). Group-internal factors (e.g., involved stakeholders, group heterogeneity, supply chains structures) can also lead to amendments (Belmin et al 2015;Brunori et al 2016;Mancini 2013).…”

“…As our case studies will show, the amendment process itself actively determines the outcome (the amended Product Specification) as well as the collective action among the GI producers. This is of high relevance because the number of GI amendments is increasing (European Commission 2019;Quiñones-Ruiz et al 2018). An important challenge for GIs is the balance between the protection of traditions and adaptation.…”

Geographical Indication to Build up Resilient Rural Economies: A Case Study from Ghana

“…Among unconventional agri-food networks, GIs are one of the most promising tools [8], which is built on unique local resources, skills, and expertise [9].…”

“…Functional repositioning of farming activity along the lines of novelty and nested markets represents a fundamental tool to empower farmers, by letting them retain added value at a farming level, as confirmed in the following dimension; (e) market governance as the institutional capacity to control markets and to construct new ones. This is related to the way in which specific supply chains are organized, how the total realized value is shared, and how the potential benefits of collective action are delivered [9,19]; (f) institutional arrangements provide the supporting structure for regulating institutions, perceived…”