On Tuesday, Jaime Castaneda, the manager director of the Consortium for Common Food Names and the manager vp of technique for the National Milk Producers Federation, stated he was “ecstatic” concerning the court docket ruling.
“For us this decision is not just about gruyère,” he stated. “This goes to the bigger fight that we have with Europe in which they are trying to confiscate all these names,” he stated, including that the European Union adopts guidelines that profit its personal producers on the expense of producers elsewhere.
In Europe, international locations are staunchly protecting over their culinary heritage. The European Union says it goals to guard the names of particular merchandise to advertise the distinctive traits which are linked to their geographical origin. Among cheeses, Roquefort have to be from Roquefort-sur-Soulzon, France; Parmesan should come from the Italian areas across the cities of Parma and Reggio; and feta have to be from sure areas of Greece.
But the identical guidelines don’t apply within the United States, the place cheeses labeled feta, Munster or Parmesan may be produced wherever. (Roquefort, nonetheless, have to be produced in France.) And the European Union can not forestall European international locations apart from Switzerland and France from promoting cheese known as gruyère within the United States. In reality, from 2010 to 2020, the United States imported extra cheese known as gruyère from the Netherlands and Germany than from Switzerland and France, based on information from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. For no less than 30 years, American cheese producers have utilized the label “gruyère” to cheese from international locations together with Denmark, Egypt and Tunisia.
A spokesman for Switzerland’s agriculture division, Jonathan Fisch, stated in an announcement that the Swiss authorities was dissatisfied by the court docket ruling. “Using the term ‘gruyère’ for a cheese produced in the United States threatens the reputation of the original product and its place in the foreign market and can only harm the entire sector,” he stated.
Margo A. Bagley, a professor at Emory University School of Law who focuses on patent legislation and mental property, stated she agreed with the court docket’s resolution.
“If we want to have a vibrant, competitive marketplace, other producers need to be able to sell products by the common name that consumers recognize,” she stated.
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