Will Cheese Derail TAFTA/TTIP?
from the grating dept
A battle over cheese could prove a major problem for the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations currently getting down to serious discussions. Here's the background, as reported by the Guardian:
As part of trade talks, the European Union wants to ban the use of European names like parmesan, feta and gruyere on cheese made in the United States.
Needless to say, some people in the US are not best pleased with what they call "an absurd European initiative":
The argument is that the American-made cheeses are shadows of the original European varieties and cut into sales and identity of the European cheeses. The Europeans say parmesan should only come from Parma, Italy, not those familiar green cylinders that American companies sell. Feta should only be from Greece, even though feta isn't a place. The EU argues it "is so closely connected to Greece as to be identified as an inherently Greek product."U.S. Senators Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) are working together to protect American dairy farmers and producers from an absurd European initiative that would change common names for cheeses Americans enjoy every day.
Techdirt has written about such geographical indications (GIs) before. There, the situation involving an attempt to protect "Belgian chocolate" was pretty trivial; now the stakes are much higher. Here's part of the Senators' letter:
In a bipartisan letter signed by more than 50 of their Senate colleagues, Sens. Toomey and Schumer urged the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to fight European Union (EU) efforts to prohibit American dairy producers from using dozens of common cheese names. The EU claims that dairy products bearing names such as asiago, feta, parmesan, and muenster are "geographical indicators" and can only be appropriately displayed on products made in certain areas of Europe.Dear Secretary Vilsack and U.S. Trade Representative Froman:
As that shows, there is pressure on the US negotiators to reject completely any EU calls for GIs in TAFTA/TTIP. Equally, the EU has made it clear that extending GI protection around the world is a priority. The European Commission says on its Web page dedicated to GIs:
We commend your past work to fight the growing geographical indication (GI) restrictions promoted by the European Union (EU). This trade barrier is of great concern to dairy and other food manufacturers in our states. On their behalf, we urge you to continue to push back against the EU's efforts to restrict our cheese exports, particularly to nations with which we already have free trade agreements. In addition, we urge you to make clear to your EU counterparts that the U.S. will reject any proposal in the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations now underway that would restrict in any way the ability of US producers to use common cheese names.The EU supports better protection of geographical indications internationally due to the increasing number of violations throughout the world. The EU is active in multilateral and bilateral negotiations protecting EU geographical indications.
Moreover, in the Canada-EU trade agreement (CETA), whose status is still unclear, Canada seems to have acquiesced to EU demands, as this story on CBC News explains:
The Europeans are particularly pleased about realizing all their goals in the area of geographic indicators or GIs, those products named for their origins, such as Gorgonzola or Feta cheeses.
After that win, the EU will doubtless be looking for similar concessions from the US -- concessions that are unlikely to be granted, in view of the objections of the US dairy industry:
"Canada -- not traditionally a friend of GIs -- has accepted that all types of food products will be protected at a comparable level to that offered by EU law and that additional GIs can be added in the future," says the document, noting 125 of Europe’s 145 "priority GIs" will enjoy full protection.
On cheeses, the document notes existing Canadian products are grandfathered, but new entrants will need to be identified by such modifiers as "style,” "type" or "imitation." The paper suggests winning the GI battle will give European manufacturers a significant leg up when competing with Canadian producers of similar products.The National Milk Producers Association, International Dairy Foods Association, U.S. Dairy Export Council, American Farm Bureau Federation, Kraft, Leprino Foods, and others support Sens. Toomey and Schumer's efforts.
Given those strongly-opposing views, it's unclear how the issue of GIs will be resolved in the TAFTA/TTIP talks -- or even whether it can be resolved. It would be rather ironic if the biggest trade deal in history collapsed not because of clashes over major issues like corporate sovereignty or the Precautionary Principle, but over the names for cheese.
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Filed Under: cheese, eu, geographical indicators, tafta, ttip, us
Reader Comments
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You wanted it..
American processing of CHEESE isnt real cheese in the OLD fashion.
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Re: You wanted it..
It extends far beyond cheese as well, covering thing like Parma ham, and every single wine-district in Europe. Champagne is Champagne, until it's made outside Champagne, in which case it's Sparkling wine, Sekt, Cr�mant, Cava, etc.
This may seem silly to some, which can be understandable, but imagine for a moment if Pepsi's and Coca Cola's trademarks suddenly didn't apply in Europe, and you begin to understand how much money and power lies in this problem.
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Re: Re: You wanted it..
While Champagne is a specific region in France and sparkling white wine is a servicable alternative name, it is an unfortunate monopolisation if it isn't called something like "Champagne Sparkling Whine". Feta is even more ridiculous given the complete lack of geographic specificity and the stupid names you end up using to designate the products.
GIs can be reasonable, but only if a generic product you are tagging it to exist. TSGs are very unfortunate, while PDOs and PGIs can have merit in certain cases.
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Re: You wanted it..
The French approach is really pretty retarded actually. It doesn't actually tell you enough about the product.
Although it's something that can vary from one hill to the next as different vintners use different approaches.
If anyone has any questions/concerns about what's in a product or if it is "really genuine" then make more precise labels rather than new names that don't mean anything to anyone.
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Here in the States, we had Bronco Wine Co v. Jolly make it all the way to the Supreme Court; the question involved a California law restricting the use of the word 'Napa' in wines. Aside from Napa Valley, there's laws in place for Long Island NY, Willamette Valley OR, and Sonoma CA, and that's just off the top of my head.
Other international wine names include Rioja, Chianti, and Tokaj, none of which are in France. Australia cares a lot, as does Mexico.
It may or may not be a stupid policy, but claiming that it's only a French policy is absurd.
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Re: Re: You wanted it..
Same thing with a Louis Vuitton bag. There's cheaper alternatives with equal or better quality and design. People still buy overpriced goods purely for the name. Some people are willing to pay for the status symbol.
As for not saying anything about the product: "DKNY" or "Apple" says nothing about a product except who designed it; it could (and probably is) made in China ny underpaid workers. "Champagne" or "Gruyere" guarantees where it's made, and that it's been made using a specific method. So... no. The requirement to use a GI actually comes with some requirements, unlike normal trademarks.
Stupid or not, GI makes as much sense as the rest of trademark law, and there's billions to make for those that can print the names on their products. You'll have about as much luck making the EU abandon the GIs as you have making the US abandon trademark law. None.
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Re: Re: You wanted it..
Such as details about it may be grown in France, but it has American roots.
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Just an extension of copyright mentality, really, so nothing more than the US deserves!
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USA doesnt even know what cheese is!
Well fuck you america, just like the rest of the food available in the USA, no one wants your processed bullshit! No one wants your poisoned meat(animals injected with numerous antibodies and growth horemoins), fruit & veg, 'cheese', pop 'soda' and just about EVERYTHING that is exported from USA is POISIONOUS to life on earth!
Jesus man, cheese is just the beggining of what Americans think are food but are actually poisonous weapons of your governments own making!
Now they are trying make it global as they have done with corn syrup, aspetamme(asperflame k), fluoride, mercury, aluminium and 100's of other toxic, crippling chemicals in everything you use!
Its a shame people are crying about just the cheese and not everything else they poisoned the world with already! Cheese isthe last problem on the table here! That iI azure you of!
You know you allow over 30 different typrez of chemicals into your child's bloodstream before there 1! Doctors happy inject everyone's child with these life changing 'vacines' that themselves course massive brain damage and are slowly but surely making everyone decease back into the dark ages intellectually and physically!
And you moan about cheese! Fucking sheeple!
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Re: USA doesnt even know what cheese is!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Eradication
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Talk about doublethink
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Rent Seeking Nonsense
They do this with Vietnamese fish and I find it equally galling there.
The beauty about an atrocity like this is it makes it really easy to boycott the people responsible. If it actually goes through, we will all know who's cheese needs to be thrown in the local harbor.
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Doing his job.
This kind out argument, who can call "What" by it's historical name, can turn into a nasty fight. I"m feeling a little better now that a food fight will slow down TAFTA/TTIP.
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Re: Doing his job.
Also, does "Virginia ham", like Parma ham, refer to a particular method of production, or is simply ham from Virginia?
If the former, then a GI seems ridiculous. If the latter, it makes more sense.
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Even goat-cheese will have my gratitude if TAFTA/TTIP falls through.
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As long as we have these rules in the EU, and the cheese is labeled "made in EU", there will be no confusion about their origin.
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The relevant term is COLA
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Re: The relevant term is COLA
They aren't placing a GI on "sparkling wine", but on "champagne", "sekt", "spumanti" and "cr�mant".
They are not placing a GI on "cheese", but on "gruyere", "feta", and "parmesan".
They aren't placing a GI on "dried ham", but on "parma ham".
See the difference? Sweden recently started the process of getting their "V�sterbotten" cheese registered as a Gi. They aren't going for "cheese" but for "v�sterbotten".
See where I'm going here?
Besides, the notion that the US can sit on a high horse here is complete bullshit. Here's a quick excerpt from wikipedia:
The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ("TRIPS") defines "geographical indications" as indications that identify a good as originating in the territory of a Member, or a region or locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the good is essentially attributable to its geographic origin. Examples of geographical indications from the United States include: "FLORIDA" for oranges; "IDAHO" for potatoes; "VIDALIA" for onions; and "WASHINGTON STATE" for apples. Geographical indications are valuable to producers for the same reason that trademarks are valuable. Geographical indications serve the same functions as trademarks, because like trademarks they are: source-identifiers; guarantees of quality; and valuable business interests. Although, as mentioned above "geographical indications" are often associated with Europe, the U.S. system for protection of geographical indications can be dated to at least the Trademark Act of 1946.
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It is already happening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korbel_Champagne_Cellars#Products
"Korbel uses the term "Champagne" on most of its labels. Whereas most other US producers identify their sparkling wine as such, and indicate the location where their grapes are produced, Korbel relies on a "semi-generic" provision under US law.[2] Korbel uses the term "California Champagne" and "Russian River Valley Champagne" on many of its labels. On its website, Korbel calls itself "producers of fine California m�thode champenoise champagnes for 129 years."[3]"
The U.S. could just include "Cheese" (it goes with wine, after all) into its semi-generic law, and then put something like "American" in front of words like "parmesan, feta and gruyere", sold in the U.S. after the Treaty is signed, and all will be well.
As Ferengi Rule of Acquisition 212 states: "A warranty without loopholes is a liability.", so is a Trade Agreement.
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Feta cheese not made in Greece but in the US will be called Feta cheese same as the genuine article. Whereas Feta cheese made in Germany has to be called Feta-style cheese.
Even if the EU products have made in the EU on them that doesn't stop the confusion from the US products that seem to be from somewhere else.
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"You are not that special to demand" - Seems like you certainly are... special.
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Nobody is demanding any such thing. It's exactly the other way around.
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Remember the Pepsi challenge? A majority of people actually prefer Pepsi, but they still buy Coca Cola. Shouldn't Pepsi be equally entitled to sell Coca Cola then, as clearly they have the better product?
Trademarks isn't about making a better product. It's about protecting your brand name. A name often sells better than a better product.
The only significant difference between GI and trademarks is that trademarks are controlled by corporations, and GIs are controlled by several corporations in a region. Call it a "geographically collective trademark" if you will.
But I'm with you regardless. Let's hope it breaks a "trade" agreement.
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I would bet good money that the vast majority of my fellow Americans have never heard of Parma, could not tell you where it was, what they're known for, and could not find it on a map.
Most geographical indicators just do not function over here. We don't know or care about them. To us, cheddar cheese is a kind of cheese, not cheese from a particular place. It's totally generic.
This is the problem with most GIs; the people trying to get them are not willing to work for it. If they launched a huge ad campaign and sustained it for years and years they might actually convince people that these goods are only those goods when they're from those places, made in those methods, etc. and that everything else is a pale imitation at best. This is possible.
But they're lazy pricks and just want a monopoly over the name and associated goodwill given to them on a silver platter.
Fuck 'em.
I don't have a problem with the idea of trademarks or generally how trademark law works. (Though some things, such as dilution, are bad ideas) But I have no sympathy for anyone who wants to get GI rights without earning them in the marketplace.
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Florida oranges? Protected GI.
So what if Americans suck at geography? How does that change anything? The reason Americans don't associate Parmesan with Parma is that the US never bothered to respect foreign GIs, and just made cheap knockoffs in the states.
Just tell me how the US is any better than the EU here.
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When you say, Nobody is being deceived, you mean no Amerikans are being deceived. Thats a little deceiving.
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If that's the case, that's a problem easily resolved by changing the labeling laws in the EU itself. There is no need to mandate the same change in US laws. Now do you get it?
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How well do you think that'd go over with the potato and orange farmers in the US?
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The cheese thing is a little different, because those names are describing types of cheeses.
If cheesemakers were falsely declaring their cheeses actually came from areas they didn't come from, you'd have a point (although your point would be that they were engaging in fraud, no GI law is needed for that). But they aren't.
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But then certain oranges are sold as "Florida Jaffa" - apparently to steer clear of the trademarked Palestinian/Israeli-grown regional variety of citrus fruits.
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For once though, this is something that would hurt the major US players instead of protect them - and suddenly this minor detail is a complete deal-breaker. Says a lot about IP doesn't it? We are spoon fed the bullshit that IP is what makes or breaks entire economies, that it's about fairness and customer protection, but in the light of this it does seem like it's all about protecting me and mine, and fuck everyone else. I find this interesting.
Can't help but wonder what the world would be like if trademark law had never been created, and someone tried to introduce this piece of legislation today. I'm guessing it would be torn to pieces by large corporations defending their "right" to sell any product they like.
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I don't think it's "very small" at all. Actual trademarks can't be retroactively applied. That is, if there is a term for a product that has been used by all manufacturers for a very long time, it would not be eligible for trademark. This is a substantial extension of trademark law.
"Says a lot about IP doesn't it?"
it does indeed.
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It's like RICO all over again.
This is the perfect example of everything that is wrong with intellectual property laws. Some people are just falling into the trap of allowing a bad law just because it seems to punish an evil person.
That's how legal atrocities start. The precedent is set for a victim that no one has any sympathy for.
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They can dish it, but they can't take it.
Live by the sword - die by the sword.
You made your bed, now sleep in it.
Sleep with dogs, wake up with fleas.
What a bunch of hypocrites.
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He who laughs last, laughs best.
A stitch in time saves nine.
Still waters run deep.
A penny saved is a penny earned.
Don't stop now!
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In that case I propose that the European beef market shut down because it's a mere shadow of the American beef market...
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The EU is pretending to be a gaggle of cheese snobs to cover up for a blatant attempt to prop up their local cheese makers and harm their biggest competitor. It couldn't be more obvious.
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-Cheese-
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Labeling and Production Method
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Re: Labeling and Production Method
I'd say it's 100% protectionism.
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Re: Re: Labeling and Production Method
GI's need to go away, period.
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GI as a necessity
France = Roquefort
England = Stilton
Italy = Gorgonzola
If memory serves correctly, each of these are cured in caves, and the microbes in the different caves are, well, different and produce a slight different cheese. There may be some other differences like the type of milk used, but I don't remember specifically. The point is, that here is an example of a similar product that is produced in different places, and named accordingly, and necessarily differently to signify that difference.
Take the champagne issue. The stuff from the Champagne region of France is quite a bit different that other wines made under methode chamagnois, and this has to do with things like soil chemistry, latitude, local weather, that years weather, etc. The grape varieties got a bit mixed over time as a lot of the European plants were devastated by a disease and were replanted with cuttings from other places, like California. There are still legitimate differences. Once one learns to read wine labels, and what the differences between Appelation Controlee vs Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita vs Qualit�tswein mit Pr�dikat, the different rules for three different countries, tells one a lot about what to expect from the bottle. This adds to the experience, but admittedly can be very confusing to the novice.
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Re: GI as a necessity
The microbes are not absorbed from the caves. They are intentionally introduced during the cheesemaking process. What microbes are used is not a function of geography.
"here is an example of a similar product that is produced in different places, and named accordingly, and necessarily differently to signify that difference."
I don't think it's an example of that, really. If I buy Roquefort, it is distinguishably Roquefort and not Stilton whether or not it was made in France.
"The stuff from the Champagne region of France is quite a bit different that other wines made under methode chamagnois"
Yes, and the champagne made by one winery in the Champagne region of France is quite a bit different from that made by a different winery in the Champagne region of France. GIs don't help with this issue at all -- that's what brand names are for.
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So the choice is either no TTIP/TAFTA or no american cheese posing for real cheese, either way the world wins...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_%28wine%29
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Cheese Melt
Oh, wait, I'm forgetting I'm on the stupid planet, . .
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Re: Cheese Melt
All free trade agreements are really about low-level economic warfare, with each nation trying to force foreign markets open on terms favorable to them while trying to keep their own markets as closed as possible.
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Well, then, I suppose
Once it all gets silly enough, even the lazy thinkers propped up in front of the TV 24x7 might take the trouble to find all this just plain nuts.
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So you are in luck. The precedent for registering a Philly cheese steak is already there.
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New Names For Wine
During the Second World War, shortly before the Normandy Invasion, maybe about late 1943 or early 1944, when there were about two million American troops in England, the King of England, George VI, was inspecting an American camp. Visiting the cook-house, His Majesty nibbled on a bit of cheese, which would almost certainly have been Cheddar, and said "good." The American cook-sergeant replied: "Of course it's good, it was made in Wisconsin."
Now the term Cheddar technically refers to the village of Cheddar, in the county of Somerset, in the west of England. Cheddar is about ten miles outside of Bristol, and, in the age of sail, Bristol was England's great "expedition port," from which long and dangerous voyages to the far corners of the world were launched. In the fifteenth century, before Columbus, Bristolmen were fishing off the coast of Newfoundland and Greenland. The sailors insisted on the best possible provisions, and the village of Cheddar organized a cheese-making cooperative to produce cheese of the required specifications, a special kind of cheese which would be edible in six months or a year, after the beef had gone rotten, during a long voyage. Of course the sailors were a fairly small market-- a few hundred ships, a few thousand men-- and they could be supplied from a restricted area. This broke down when non-sailors began consuming Cheddar in a serious way. About the same time, the steamship came along, and Bristol was eclipsed by Liverpool. The EU "locavores" have instituted a "West Country Farmhouse Cheddar" area, viz. Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall, but of course most of this area has no deep-maritime tradition, and is essentially irrelevant to the origins of Cheddar. Many of the authentic cheeses this area produces are of a type which will not keep for more than a month or two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_cheese
The United States Department of Agriculture says that you cannot call something "cheese" unless it is made from cultured milk. The debased American product, Velveeta, which you see in convenience stores, is not cheese, American or otherwise, and is not allowed to be called so. It is a "processed cheese product." The feds periodically have to step on the manufacturer's toes, when the manufacturer goes over the line, making false representations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velveeta#Ingredients
American Cheese is sort of non-existent. I don't know offhand where I could buy American Cheese, which is lawfully a kind of vin ordinaire of cheese. There used to be something you could buy in convenience stores, which was described as American Cheese, which was a kind of honest vin ordinaire of a cheese, like the proverbial Algerian-assisted Beaujolais, but I haven't seen that for years, at least in solid chunks or slices (you can still get American cheese in shredded form-- the high surface area, relative to volume, means that it melts readily without being debased with peanut derivatives). What a store will sell, nowadays, is a lawful mild cheddar, and below that, something from the pit, Velveeta or the equivalent, which is not lawfully allowed to be called cheese in any way, shape or form. Continuing the analogy, it would be the equivalent of a "wine" made out of industrial alcohol (ultimately made from gasoline), water, and artificial grape flavoring.
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This is a common myth. Velveeta is actually real cheese. The reason it can't be called that it contains too much uncultured milk to qualify. So it's a "cheese product" instead of "cheese".
The processing referred to in the "processed" part is that they take the cheese and squeeze it through a fine sieve to break up all the curds.
Fun fact: The secret to why Velveeta melts so nicely is the added sodium citrate.
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Don't worry Americans
Joking aside I'm surprised more concern has made about Cheddar claiming its GI.
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re:
Ceddy
www.gofastek.com
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