A European trademark ruling on Parmesan cheese has threatened to weaken the EU’s protected designation of origin (PDO) system.
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The European Court of Justice has ruled that official consumer watchdogs have no legal duty to police rules on the origin of imported products, only those foods made domestically.
The ruling throws up the possibility that if a Sicilian cheese maker was producing generic blue cheese and selling it as blue stilton across the EU, regulators in the UK – not consumer authorities in Italy – would have to tangle with the Italian courts.
Under the EU’s PDO laws – foods such as Parma ham, stilton and Parmesan – must be made by traditional methods in their historic home region to carry names listed in the regulation.
The division of responsibility over policing the rights of foods under the PDO system was previously unclear but the ECJ made its ruling as part of a decision on the Parmesan trademark.
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By GlobalDataThe ECJ threw out claims from German cheese producers to use the Parmesan name on their products. Judges agreed that Parmesan should always be Parmigiano Reggiano, made in Parma, Italy.
However, the judges said: “Responsibility for monitoring compliance with the… PDO Parmigiano Reggiano does not… lie with the German inspection authorities.”
