Protected geographical status: limits and opporunities for vinegar

Protected Geographical Status (PGS) is a legal structure defined by European Union to protect regional food and specialties. It groups three distinctive systems: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and Traditional Specialty Guaranteed (TSG). The geographical appellation to distinguish food and beverages, especially wine, is very old, but it was applied systematically, starting from 1935 for the French wines with the constitution of the Institut National des Appellations d'Origine. Then, legally enforced with the Appellation d’Origene Controlée. Nowadays, geographical appellation or PGS is quite spread and many countries has adopted systems that remind the PGS structure of EU, were the number of regional foods with a PGS is huge. E.g. France claims 1578 PGS plus 640 wines with appellation, Italy has 238 PDO/PGI products, plus 467 wines. The other EU countries follow with relatively less products. This huge number of PGS products clearly shows how much is considered this policy in the EU. The reason is due to the broad idea that geographical appellation policy is a key to improve social and economical life of local agricultural area. In particular the PGS has been accredited of five main features: 1) to protect the reputation of regional food; 2) to promote rural and agricultural activity; 3) to help producers obtaining better price; 4) to eliminate unfair competition; 5) to help consumers to discriminate among authentic and non-genuine products. Now, after few decades since the implementation of the PGS structure, it is time to make a balance cost/benefit of the system. The first question to answer is: does the PGS reach the initial purposes? In particular, does it help and promote rural area? Does it help consumers to obtain better price for authentic products? If we consider that many PDO products have cyclic commercial difficulties and prices paid to farmers are often lower than the production cost, the answer is no. Furthermore, the price of PDO products paid by consumers on the retail centers is higher than the price paid for analogous products, it means that something wrong it happen in the distribution chain. The vinegars with a PGS are a restricted number: Vinagre de Jerez; Vinagre del Condado de Huelva; Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena; Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Reggio Emilia. Then, PDO attribution is in progress for two other vinegars, Vinagre de Montilla-Moriles and the Chinese Zhenjiang Xiang Cu (镇江香醋). The concerns about GPS policy are particularly relevant for PDO/PGI vinegars.