The 26th of July, the EUIPO published its last sectorial report on the economic cost of counterfeiting within the EU in the spirits and wine sectors.
The loss of sales due to counterfeiting affects the whole sector, from employment to government revenue, reaching the amount of €1.3 billion per year. These figures represent a loss of 4.4% of the legitimate sales of spirits (€740 million) and 2.3% of the legitimate sales of wine (€530 million). The full report is available @ https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/en/web/observatory/ipr_infringement_wines_and_spirits
These figures are worrying for GIs, as some 50% of the volume of wine as well as 30% of the one of spirits produced in the EU benefit from GIs (according to 2012 study commissioned by the EU “Value of production of agricultural products and foodstuffs, wines, aromatised wines and spirits protected by a geographical indication – data concerning 2005 – 2010 ) . Moreover, these 2 sectors play a key role in in the EU trade balance. According to a study carried out by SpiritsEUROPE, in 2015, spirits represented 33% of the overall EU foodstuff exports (its largest share), 2/3 of which deriving from GIs spirits. It is followed by wine sector, which represent 31% of the overall EU foodstuff exports.
This summary has been extracted from an “oriGIn Alert”, which is a service reserved exclusively to oriGIn members.
