What is your opinion about the EU quality policy of food products (PDO/PGI/TSG designation)? Do the citizens in your country trust in this policy? Did the sales of products bearing such logo increase? Is this support of quality food products enough from the EU? Are there another systems to promote food quality in the EU/in the world?
thank you
European Union has operated three programs of product designations in order to promote and protect the names of quality agricultural products and foodstuffs. They fall into two categories: those linked to a territory and those relating to a particular production method.
Hi Vanda
The PDO/PGI/TSG designations only cover a relatively small range of products – as of March 2015 one online source (culinaryroutes.org) claimed there were 1261 products registered under these schemes. Popularity of the schemes seems to vary greatly between EU countries. Italy, France and Spain are clearly the most enthusiastic producers. UK producers (where I am based) seem less enthusiastic with only 65 products registered by early 2016. My particular region within the UK (Northern Ireland) has only 3 products registered (Comber potatoes, Armagh Bramley apples and Irish Whiskey – all wonderful!). I have no specific data on sales figures or consumer attitudes, but my personal impression is that consumers of local products will not take much notice of these designations because we already recognise our own regional products as being good. When purchasing imported products will consumers take notice of a designation? It can do no harm to have a designation on the packaging, but with so many food fraud issues coming to light in recent years (and Europe is not exempt from such organised fraud), I fear that consumers are becoming increasingly sceptical of “what it says on the tin”. So some consumers will take no notice of any designation while other consumers will take reassurance that this particular product is subject to more scrutiny and is likely to be more authentic and, presumably, more safe.
My impression is these designations are primarily about brand or trademark protection and helping to market particular products overseas rather than helping to broadly improve food quality.
Best wishes.
http://culinaryroutes.org/brief-outline-of-eu-quality-schemes-pdo-pgi-tsg/
Dear Lesheng and Suresh, thank you very much for your comments. Dear Kevin, thank you very much for your valuable opinions.
I spent some time in France and my experience - the people there
consider this designation for very important, they think such product has exceptional quality and they are willing to spend more money for such goods, sometimes up to half as much as other comparable products without PDO/PGI/TSG labeling