Last week, the London’s famous store “Harrods” blocked online and in-store sales of olive oil not corresponding to the product specification of the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) “Toscano”, but sold as “made using 100% Tuscan olives”. Such label clearly infringes the rights deriving from the Italian PGI. Following the initiative of the Italian Ministry of Agriculture’s Inspectorate for safeguarding quality and suppressing frauds in food and agricultural products (ICQRF), the UK Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) promptly acted to secure such result.
This was possible thanks to the so-called ex officio protection of PDO/PGI, available under the EU Regulation 1151/2012 on quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs, which adoption in 2012 was strongly supported by oriGIn.
This summary has been extracted from an “oriGIn Alert”, which is a service reserved exclusively to oriGIn members.
