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<<They instead have to rebrand and use labels such as "Parmesan-style," which often turn off consumers who may see the products as unauthentic.>> The wording i

<<They instead have to rebrand and use labels such as "Parmesan-style," which often turn off consumers who may see the products as unauthentic.>> The wording is strange, it looks like they say that it is wrong to say that it is inauthentic. But, there is no doubt, if you buy Greek feta that is manufactured in Australia in addition with different recipes and ingredients origins, it is clearly inauthentic and deceptive.

rat9988 5y ago
But feta without greek wouldn't be deceptive.
anoncake 5y ago
You can use the same recipes in Australia as in Greece. Ingredients could be tricky, but let's assume that you can make sheep milk in Australia that has the same properties as Greek sheep milk. Then why should it matter where the feta has been manufactured?
- dopidopHN 5y ago
  Cybernetic again, cheese is more than the sum of its part. I’m only half joking. Plus, for some recipe the food that the cow ate and the altitude do make a difference in the output. I’m all for other places making cheese and whatnot. But when you buy the said cheese to find the exact taste you know since childhood, and that you miss in the exotic land you are living as a adult… You can be picky on the product. I want the Madeleine de Proust. Not a taste-a-like. Those labels help me do that. If I want the real deal I will buy it and the label will help me archive that goal. ( not always, see below ) If I feel adventurous, I have nothing against trying other cheeses. Some are good, some might event be identical to the label-cheese. I’m open to that. Furthermore, and tangentially related … folk should be open to the idea that some produce don’t travel well. They just don’t. My favorite cheese is embarrassingly bad when I found the official label in the US. The taste is more sauer and the consistency different. It’s just sad.( to eat )
  - anoncake 5y ago
    You ignored > but let's assume that you can make sheep milk in Australia that has the same properties as Greek sheep milk.
    - alkonaut 5y ago
      That’s still just a property of the physical product. That’s just half the story. The important thing is keeping the production in the original region. So I want it to have the competitive advantage of the name. As a consumer I want my money to support the producers in the original location, which is easier if I know that the name means it’s produced there. Note that zero of these arguments have anything to do with quality or whether I could even distinguish the product from one made elsewhere. That’s secondary.
    - dopidopHN 5y ago
      I thought it was encompass in « more than the sum of its part ». The milk is core, the process is key, the conservation and timing is deceptively important. You might feed the same breed of cow the same altitude grass, at the same season… and still end up with a different product. But I see your point, and I think it’s a reasonable one. It’s possible to duplicate a cheese making process and be successful ( or wine: California comes to mind ) But that might be tricky, and maybe i don’t want to be disappointed so I will go with the Geographical indicators label. It’s a safe bet. A sister response to my earlier comment bring a good point. Sometime you want to patronize a particular region for sentimental reasons.
      - anoncake 5y ago
        Valid point. If the conditions in a given region actually make it impossible to replicate Greek Feta – then you just can't make Feta there. However, it might make sense to allow some leeway to avoid unnecessary shipping. Not very relevant in Macedonia, but if an Australian gets Feta from Greece instead of a local substitute which is close enough for most customers that should be an explicit decision on their part. In any case, you can still look at the "made in..." label to determine the product's origin.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Because I as a consumer buy more than the sum of the ingredients. I don’t want to buy a product that’s indistinguishable from the product made in the original location. I want to buy the priduct made there. One reason is that I want to support the production there, as it would be a tragedy if (say) Parmesan producers in Italy were out competed by producers in the US (again, regardless of quality or properties of the product).
  - rhn_mk1 5y ago
    What would make that a tragedy? If the production of Parmesan in Italy is an important cultural phenomenon, then it can be preserved using other means, even non-economical ones.
    - alkonaut 5y ago
      It seems more genuine to have it remain a business/industry and not a museum. I quite like having genuine Parmesan from the right place. I’m happy to see any amount of ham fisted protectionism to keep it that way too. So to me it’s an easy win.
      - dantheman 5y ago
        So all you have to do is look at where it where it was made on the label -- is that too difficult?
        alkonaut 5y ago
        > So all you have to do is look at where it where it was made on the label -- is that too difficult? Apparently yes. Otherwise why would anyone insist on this? I’m also not at all against seeing the entire new world having to eat “Parmesan style cheese” just to reinforce my own feeling of old-world superiority (I’m half joking, but you get the point of why this may be a thing)
        rhn_mk1 5y ago
- iso1210 5y ago
  Lets assume you can make a trainer in exactly the same way as Adidas do, can you stick Adidas on the side? No, it's a trademark. That's effectively what PGI is, and unlike patents and copyright, trademarks have a direct benefit to the consumer (they know what they are getting. Nobody is stopping people buying a Gutchy handbag, but the selling can't pass it off as Gucci) Same with "100% Florida orange juice" or "Idaho potatoes". I can buy "Southern Style Whiskey" and that's fine, but if I see "Tennessee whiskey" I am assured it's made in Tennessee. That may be important for me, it may not be, but I have the power.
  - anoncake 5y ago
    > Lets assume you can make a trainer in exactly the same way as Adidas do, can you stick Adidas on the side? I absolutely should. What I obviously shouldn't be allowed to do is claim it's actually made by Adidas.
roelschroeven 5y ago
But the thing is, what if you produce feta with the exact same ingredients and recipe in Australia? The customer gets the exact same thing, only made somewhere else. I'm all for quality standards, so that customers can now exactly what they get. But be able to use a name based on the location where something is produced, that doesn't protect the customer at all. It only protects a selected set of producers.
- skywal_l 5y ago
  What if you produce exactly the same sneakers than Nike? That does not protect the customer and protects the producers too. But somehow, nobody compains about that. I don't see why brands should be more protected that countries or regions name.
  - anoncake 5y ago
    Then you should be allowed to apply the Nike brand to them. Producers' interests don't matter. They only exist to serve the customer.
    - mantas 5y ago
      So we'd end up with Nike made by Nike and Nike made by someone else? Then, in general public eyes, Nike-made-by-Nike would become true Nike.
      - anoncake 5y ago
        If someone is willing to pay extra for an identical product because it's made by a more famous company they have only themselves to blame.
        WanderPanda 5y ago
        How long must one keep his IT infrastructure as cattle instead of pets to come to believe that such a thing like an „identical“ product exists? :p In the real world almost nothing is fungible. Additionally, even with white labelling there is value created (look at Xiaomi for an example).
jkldotio 5y ago
Feta comes from φέτα/~"slice", so it's not named after a region. Melbourne has one of the largest Greek populations in the world. Why don't these Greek people have right to their heritage? If the British were to start trying to say that "sandwich" was protected and American sandwiches were "inauthentic and deceptive" would you take such a claim seriously?
- alkonaut 5y ago
  > Why don't these Greek people have right to their heritage? Probably because it would be difficult to find any reasonable middle ground between “can only be made at the geographical origin” and “can be made anywhere by anyone” Also for a lot of product the origin more than the heritage of the people is central, such as the climate and soil in Champagne (which perhaps soon will be most historically authentic in southern Sweden after some climate change). This is about regions keeping the right to their products, not necessarily people retaining that right. Move from Champagne and you can’t make Champagne. Not that complicated. Feta is a regional produce too - the name doesn’t really change that. > If the British were to start trying to say that "sandwich" was protected and American sandwiches were "inauthentic and deceptive" would you take such a claim seriously? No?
  - jkldotio 5y ago
    So you've conflated regional with generic, a distinction I pointed out first, without any worked reasoning at all. People generally lose their trademarks quickly if they don't enforce them and allow them to go into the language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_generici... I honestly don't see you as providing a real argument from first principles.
    - alkonaut 5y ago
      I used Champagne as an example, but the same applies to Parmesan, Feta and Västerbotten which are reginal by tradition in one case and by name in two. What’s important to me as a consumer is I want to support the producers of the original region, not much else.
throw0101a 5y ago
> But, there is no doubt, if you buy Greek feta that is manufactured in Australia in addition with different recipes and ingredients origins, it is clearly inauthentic and deceptive. There is pizza. There is New York (style) pizza, Chicago (style) pizza, Detroit, Montreal, etc. Each of those (styles) can be made anywhere. There's no reason why Chicago-style (deep-dish) pizza couldn't be made in London. Beside the physical location, what 'technical differences' are there between feta made in Greece versus Australia? There are similar 'feta-style' cheese found in many other places: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feta#Similar_cheeses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feta#Similar_cheeses Personally I don't necessarily mind protected labels, but I think that when you register a new one that an 'official alternative' should also be mandated so that people who want to make 'knock-off products' can know what to use if they're using the same recipe/process. This way consumers know what is "real" and and what is an alternative.
- slightwinder 5y ago
  Pizza is a dish with limited lifetime. It wouldn't be practible to link it to a location. And is there anything specific about the different styles that linkes them to the location? With ingredients you have the specific local conditions, namely the plants, animals, soil, weather, which all influence the outcome. Additionally there is also the local knowledge, traditions and laws which influence the endresult. And finally we also have the reason where there are patents, copyrights and trademarks in the first place. People invest time and money to bring a product to fame, and it's kinda unfair and sometimes even harmful if you allow anyone to just highjack the success and sell your own inferiour product under their fame. > There are similar 'feta-style' cheese found in many other places: Indeed, but similar is not the same. A negative example in that regard would be wasabi. The original japanese wasabi is hardly available outside of japan. Yet most people believe that the fake-wasabi is the real thing and that they experience the authentic taste of japanese dishes (mostly sushi).
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    "Pizza is a dish with limited lifetime. It wouldn't be practible to link it to a location." And yet it has been so linked; there is a PDO designation for Pizza Napoli. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:040:0017:0025:EN:PDF https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:... You can make these pizzas anywhere you like; but you have to use proper mozzarella, and rather special tomatoes. I have not found a way of making a good Pizza Napoletana using tomatoes that are not San Marzano. I'm sure it's possible to make decent mozzarella outside of Italy; but nobody seems to be doing it - Danish mozzarella is a nasty, rubbery fake. We (consumers) need proper labelling, backed by law. Without that, you get a slide to the bottom. Labelling for origin is part of that. Hey, if you don't care about the geographical origin, ignore the label and buy Danish mozzarella, or generic tinned tomatoes. It's cheaper. But if you do care, and accurate labelling isn't enforced by law, then you are deprived of choice. Without choice, there's no efficient market.
mustafa_pasi 5y ago
The notion of "authentic" food is a manufactured marketing gimmick. There is always variation present, even from household to household, but for marketing purposes we now like to pretend that some particular food is always prepared exactly in this one way, with no room for deviation at all. This is nonsense.
- ska 5y ago
  I think this comment is targeted at the wrong level of abstraction. E.g. Obviously there is not one way to make cheese, but cheeses themselves are unique. Most of this argument is about how much variation is acceptable before it's really something different and should be labeled differently so consumers are well informed. EU and USA seem to be at extremes on this, the former arguing that if I make cheese doing the same thing except for being 1 field west of a region, I shouldn't be able to label it X, while many American companies think they should be able to use different cows with different feed and different processes and quality control and still call it X. I suspect there's a better middle ground, but not sure anyone will reach it.
- vinceguidry 5y ago
  You're using the word 'authentic' to refer to what should properly be called 'traditional'. For example. I was watching a few videos by Isaac Toups, a Cajun chef. Being Cajun myself, I was curious how he'd approach the cuisine. At first I saw a few of the things he was doing and guessed he wasn't from the Lafayette area, but in fact he is. So I watched his techniques more closely. I determined his cooking technique to be authentically Cajun, but not traditionally Cajun. He incorporated techniques from his roots, to make new dishes. This is how we can have Cajun pizza, Cajun spaghetti. Tradition is making what your grandma made, the same way she made it. Authenticity is making what your grandma would love to make if she were still young and spry. It's worth discussing how authentic a restaurant is. Taco Bell is most certainly not authentic Mexican, and different Mexican restaurants can be more or less authentic even while neither make traditional dishes. Restaurants can be purposefully inauthentic, I think fusion is as far as this can go while still remaining identifiabally ethnic. I recall a Neapolitan-style pizza joint that would put whatever you wanted on their pizzas that still had that crispy, charred crust. They didn't pretend to be traditional or even authentic. It was all about great pizza, and while it wasn't the best pizza in the city, I greatly enjoyed many meals there.
flexie 5y ago
Geographic indications is far less intrusive and far less monopolistic than a trademark is. If I make a search engine the exact same way Google does, I cannot call my search engine Google. Neither in America, nor in Europe or in Asia, or even Africa or South America. And this brand is not even 30 years old. One single company, Google, has trademarked the brand for relatively little money on the entire planet, and it serves a very limited group of billionaires and relatively few employees. A geographical indication, on the other hand, serves not just one company but typically hundreds or thousands or even ten thousands of independent companies with up to hundreds of thousands employed. If I want to sell wine as Bordeaux wine, all I have to do is to have a vineyard in Bordeaux and live up to the requirements that the other Bordeaux vineyards also comply with. Note, that Google is free to keep its trademark although it changes its services to the detriment of consumers. Meaning, it maintains the trademark that all governments of the world are paid peanuts to protect on its behalf and can continue to lure consumers to believe that it is still the same service, for example still not "doing evil". But if I change my Bordeaux wine, for example if I change the blend to include grapes that are not part of the approved Bordeaux grapes, I cannot keep the geographical indication. I am not saying trademarks should not exist or that companies with government protected trademarks should be forced not to change their products or services. But I think it's important to remember that the trademark is often sells a lie about what a company used to be. And I think the protection of trademarks should be linked to taxes paid in the geographic markets where the trademarks apply. Please note that geographic indication as a type of intellectual property right that applies to producers of products typically leaves more revenue and taxes in the countries where they are consumed. It is in many ways a more modern, inclusive and fair IPR.
- lisper 5y ago
  Why is drawing a boundary around a geographic region any more fair than drawing a boundary around a corporation? Either way you have a group of people who benefit and a group that does not. If you want to be part of the group that benefits from, say, the Google brand, you don't even have to move. All you have to do it buy Google stock.
  - moomin 5y ago
l320093jj 5y ago
Here's the thing: I'd argue in the US calling it "feta" is not deceptive, because most people I know have no expectation that feta cheese necessarily comes from some area of Greece. I have no problem labeling a cheese "feta" if the location of production is clearly indicated. "Feta" is just "shorthand" for "feta-style". Everyone will just call it "feta" anyway. Maybe it doesn't matter if it says "feta-style" or "feta" but the whole thing seems sort of silly to me and a waste of money. It's fighting a losing battle. It's not that I don't appreciate cheeses from their original locations; it's just that this labeling initiative seems disingenuous to me, in that it seems to be fighting normal processes of language evolution and change. A better example maybe is cheddar. This is something so entrenched in American vernacular that the idea that we should insist on labeling it "cheddar-style" is clearly unnecessary. When someone says "cheddar" in the US about 99.9% of the time they are referring to a style of cheese, maybe from New York, maybe Vermont, maybe Wisconsin, maybe from England, maybe somewhere else. They're not referring to a location. "Cheddar" and "cheddar" in this context are polysemous homonyms/polysemes. Arguments about replicating some original flavor of a place of origin are missing the real underlying problem, which is that labeling a product according to its commonly understood meaning, if the location of production is clearly given in the packaging, is not deceptive. Sure, we can tack on "-style" onto everything but it's not going to keep people from ignoring it in speech.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  Note that Cheddar isn't protected, but "West Country Farmhouse Cheddar" is. My cynical take is that it doesn't have a more general designation because companies couldn't profit from Cheddar the way they do if it had to be produced in Cheddar Gorge.
  - 123pie123 5y ago
    I'm surprised the town/ region of cheddar haven't tried to get geographical right to cheddar cheese
    - M2Ys4U 5y ago
      IIRC, there's only one cheese producer left in the actual village of Cheddar (others have moved to the surrounding areas), and they don't want to use a a PDO.
PicassoCTs 5y ago
You can buy australian feta though and package it in greek - and then its authentic.
- detaro 5y ago
  no you can't.
briefcomment 5y ago
I mean, as long as they're basically using the same ingredients and process, why not say something like "Wisconsin Parmesan" instead of essentially "Fake Parmesan"? I couldn't care less about getting Parmesan from the actual place in Italy, but I would like the same ingredients and the same cooking process.
alexitorg 5y ago
It seems crazy that you can have Greek immigrants in Australia making feta cheese the traditional way and not being able to sell it as Feta. It seems to me to be protectionism pure and simple. But that is what Europeans seem to want. In the long run the reputation of products will match their quality, and if it is any good, people will be eating Australian white goat cheese instead of Greek Feta. You see that happening already with Monterey Jack instead of Mozzarella.
- cheese_goddess 5y ago
  > It seems crazy that you can have Greek immigrants in Australia making feta cheese the traditional way and not being able to sell it as Feta. It's not crazy at all. The PDO for feta protects only certain regions in Greece so for example the cheesemakers in Crete, the Ioanian Islands or the Cyclades, cannot sell their white, sheep's milk cheese as "feta" anymore than Canadians of Greek origin can. If not all Greeks in Greece can sell their cheese as feta, why should Canadians? Now, there are a couple of misconceptions about cheese technology in your comment that I'd like to correct: > You see that happening already with Monterey Jack instead of Mozzarella. Jack cheese is nothing like mozzarella cheese. Mozzarella is a pasta fillata cheese while Jack is not. I'm not sure why you can't tell the two apart but a possible reason might be the inferior quality mozzarella sold in the US market (I assume you are in the US if you're speaking of Jack). You wouldn't confuse Mozzarella di Buffala Campagna or Fior di Late for Jack if you were drunk on good Italian wine. > In the long run the reputation of products will match their quality, and if it is any good, people will be eating Australian white goat cheese instead of Greek Feta. Australian white goat cheese is not comparable to feta. Feta is a cheese made with sheep's milk and with the addition of up to 30% goat's milk. Goat's milk adds characteristic flavours but a 100% goat's cheese made in the same way as feta would have very different organoleptic characteristics than feta. Also, most feta cheese made in Australia is made with cow's milk.
- mint2 5y ago
  If I bought California olive oil and it turned out to be made in France I would feel deceived. As a consumer, If I buy something that it’s named for a region it should either come from the region or say “style” if it’s made exactly the same way but somewhere else. If not, I feel duped.

rat9988 5y ago

But feta without greek wouldn't be deceptive.

anoncake 5y ago

You can use the same recipes in Australia as in Greece. Ingredients could be tricky, but let's assume that you can make sheep milk in Australia that has the same properties as Greek sheep milk. Then why should it matter where the feta has been manufactured?

dopidopHN 5y ago
Cybernetic again, cheese is more than the sum of its part. I’m only half joking. Plus, for some recipe the food that the cow ate and the altitude do make a difference in the output. I’m all for other places making cheese and whatnot. But when you buy the said cheese to find the exact taste you know since childhood, and that you miss in the exotic land you are living as a adult… You can be picky on the product. I want the Madeleine de Proust. Not a taste-a-like. Those labels help me do that. If I want the real deal I will buy it and the label will help me archive that goal. ( not always, see below ) If I feel adventurous, I have nothing against trying other cheeses. Some are good, some might event be identical to the label-cheese. I’m open to that. Furthermore, and tangentially related … folk should be open to the idea that some produce don’t travel well. They just don’t. My favorite cheese is embarrassingly bad when I found the official label in the US. The taste is more sauer and the consistency different. It’s just sad.( to eat )
- anoncake 5y ago
  You ignored > but let's assume that you can make sheep milk in Australia that has the same properties as Greek sheep milk.
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    That’s still just a property of the physical product. That’s just half the story. The important thing is keeping the production in the original region. So I want it to have the competitive advantage of the name. As a consumer I want my money to support the producers in the original location, which is easier if I know that the name means it’s produced there. Note that zero of these arguments have anything to do with quality or whether I could even distinguish the product from one made elsewhere. That’s secondary.
  - dopidopHN 5y ago
    I thought it was encompass in « more than the sum of its part ». The milk is core, the process is key, the conservation and timing is deceptively important. You might feed the same breed of cow the same altitude grass, at the same season… and still end up with a different product. But I see your point, and I think it’s a reasonable one. It’s possible to duplicate a cheese making process and be successful ( or wine: California comes to mind ) But that might be tricky, and maybe i don’t want to be disappointed so I will go with the Geographical indicators label. It’s a safe bet. A sister response to my earlier comment bring a good point. Sometime you want to patronize a particular region for sentimental reasons.
    - anoncake 5y ago
      Valid point. If the conditions in a given region actually make it impossible to replicate Greek Feta – then you just can't make Feta there. However, it might make sense to allow some leeway to avoid unnecessary shipping. Not very relevant in Macedonia, but if an Australian gets Feta from Greece instead of a local substitute which is close enough for most customers that should be an explicit decision on their part. In any case, you can still look at the "made in..." label to determine the product's origin.
alkonaut 5y ago
Because I as a consumer buy more than the sum of the ingredients. I don’t want to buy a product that’s indistinguishable from the product made in the original location. I want to buy the priduct made there. One reason is that I want to support the production there, as it would be a tragedy if (say) Parmesan producers in Italy were out competed by producers in the US (again, regardless of quality or properties of the product).
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  What would make that a tragedy? If the production of Parmesan in Italy is an important cultural phenomenon, then it can be preserved using other means, even non-economical ones.
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    It seems more genuine to have it remain a business/industry and not a museum. I quite like having genuine Parmesan from the right place. I’m happy to see any amount of ham fisted protectionism to keep it that way too. So to me it’s an easy win.
    - dantheman 5y ago
      So all you have to do is look at where it where it was made on the label -- is that too difficult?
      - alkonaut 5y ago
        > So all you have to do is look at where it where it was made on the label -- is that too difficult? Apparently yes. Otherwise why would anyone insist on this? I’m also not at all against seeing the entire new world having to eat “Parmesan style cheese” just to reinforce my own feeling of old-world superiority (I’m half joking, but you get the point of why this may be a thing)
        rhn_mk1 5y ago
iso1210 5y ago
Lets assume you can make a trainer in exactly the same way as Adidas do, can you stick Adidas on the side? No, it's a trademark. That's effectively what PGI is, and unlike patents and copyright, trademarks have a direct benefit to the consumer (they know what they are getting. Nobody is stopping people buying a Gutchy handbag, but the selling can't pass it off as Gucci) Same with "100% Florida orange juice" or "Idaho potatoes". I can buy "Southern Style Whiskey" and that's fine, but if I see "Tennessee whiskey" I am assured it's made in Tennessee. That may be important for me, it may not be, but I have the power.
- anoncake 5y ago
  > Lets assume you can make a trainer in exactly the same way as Adidas do, can you stick Adidas on the side? I absolutely should. What I obviously shouldn't be allowed to do is claim it's actually made by Adidas.

roelschroeven 5y ago

But the thing is, what if you produce feta with the exact same ingredients and recipe in Australia? The customer gets the exact same thing, only made somewhere else. I'm all for quality standards, so that customers can now exactly what they get. But be able to use a name based on the location where something is produced, that doesn't protect the customer at all. It only protects a selected set of producers.

skywal_l 5y ago
What if you produce exactly the same sneakers than Nike? That does not protect the customer and protects the producers too. But somehow, nobody compains about that. I don't see why brands should be more protected that countries or regions name.
- anoncake 5y ago
  Then you should be allowed to apply the Nike brand to them. Producers' interests don't matter. They only exist to serve the customer.
  - mantas 5y ago
    So we'd end up with Nike made by Nike and Nike made by someone else? Then, in general public eyes, Nike-made-by-Nike would become true Nike.
    - anoncake 5y ago
      If someone is willing to pay extra for an identical product because it's made by a more famous company they have only themselves to blame.
      - WanderPanda 5y ago
        How long must one keep his IT infrastructure as cattle instead of pets to come to believe that such a thing like an „identical“ product exists? :p In the real world almost nothing is fungible. Additionally, even with white labelling there is value created (look at Xiaomi for an example).

jkldotio 5y ago

Feta comes from φέτα/~"slice", so it's not named after a region. Melbourne has one of the largest Greek populations in the world. Why don't these Greek people have right to their heritage? If the British were to start trying to say that "sandwich" was protected and American sandwiches were "inauthentic and deceptive" would you take such a claim seriously?

alkonaut 5y ago
> Why don't these Greek people have right to their heritage? Probably because it would be difficult to find any reasonable middle ground between “can only be made at the geographical origin” and “can be made anywhere by anyone” Also for a lot of product the origin more than the heritage of the people is central, such as the climate and soil in Champagne (which perhaps soon will be most historically authentic in southern Sweden after some climate change). This is about regions keeping the right to their products, not necessarily people retaining that right. Move from Champagne and you can’t make Champagne. Not that complicated. Feta is a regional produce too - the name doesn’t really change that. > If the British were to start trying to say that "sandwich" was protected and American sandwiches were "inauthentic and deceptive" would you take such a claim seriously? No?
- jkldotio 5y ago
  So you've conflated regional with generic, a distinction I pointed out first, without any worked reasoning at all. People generally lose their trademarks quickly if they don't enforce them and allow them to go into the language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_generici... I honestly don't see you as providing a real argument from first principles.
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    I used Champagne as an example, but the same applies to Parmesan, Feta and Västerbotten which are reginal by tradition in one case and by name in two. What’s important to me as a consumer is I want to support the producers of the original region, not much else.

throw0101a 5y ago

> But, there is no doubt, if you buy Greek feta that is manufactured in Australia in addition with different recipes and ingredients origins, it is clearly inauthentic and deceptive. There is pizza. There is New York (style) pizza, Chicago (style) pizza, Detroit, Montreal, etc. Each of those (styles) can be made anywhere. There's no reason why Chicago-style (deep-dish) pizza couldn't be made in London. Beside the physical location, what 'technical differences' are there between feta made in Greece versus Australia? There are similar 'feta-style' cheese found in many other places: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feta#Similar_cheeses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feta#Similar_cheeses Personally I don't necessarily mind protected labels, but I think that when you register a new one that an 'official alternative' should also be mandated so that people who want to make 'knock-off products' can know what to use if they're using the same recipe/process. This way consumers know what is "real" and and what is an alternative.

slightwinder 5y ago
Pizza is a dish with limited lifetime. It wouldn't be practible to link it to a location. And is there anything specific about the different styles that linkes them to the location? With ingredients you have the specific local conditions, namely the plants, animals, soil, weather, which all influence the outcome. Additionally there is also the local knowledge, traditions and laws which influence the endresult. And finally we also have the reason where there are patents, copyrights and trademarks in the first place. People invest time and money to bring a product to fame, and it's kinda unfair and sometimes even harmful if you allow anyone to just highjack the success and sell your own inferiour product under their fame. > There are similar 'feta-style' cheese found in many other places: Indeed, but similar is not the same. A negative example in that regard would be wasabi. The original japanese wasabi is hardly available outside of japan. Yet most people believe that the fake-wasabi is the real thing and that they experience the authentic taste of japanese dishes (mostly sushi).
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  "Pizza is a dish with limited lifetime. It wouldn't be practible to link it to a location." And yet it has been so linked; there is a PDO designation for Pizza Napoli. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:040:0017:0025:EN:PDF https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:... You can make these pizzas anywhere you like; but you have to use proper mozzarella, and rather special tomatoes. I have not found a way of making a good Pizza Napoletana using tomatoes that are not San Marzano. I'm sure it's possible to make decent mozzarella outside of Italy; but nobody seems to be doing it - Danish mozzarella is a nasty, rubbery fake. We (consumers) need proper labelling, backed by law. Without that, you get a slide to the bottom. Labelling for origin is part of that. Hey, if you don't care about the geographical origin, ignore the label and buy Danish mozzarella, or generic tinned tomatoes. It's cheaper. But if you do care, and accurate labelling isn't enforced by law, then you are deprived of choice. Without choice, there's no efficient market.

mustafa_pasi 5y ago

The notion of "authentic" food is a manufactured marketing gimmick. There is always variation present, even from household to household, but for marketing purposes we now like to pretend that some particular food is always prepared exactly in this one way, with no room for deviation at all. This is nonsense.

ska 5y ago
I think this comment is targeted at the wrong level of abstraction. E.g. Obviously there is not one way to make cheese, but cheeses themselves are unique. Most of this argument is about how much variation is acceptable before it's really something different and should be labeled differently so consumers are well informed. EU and USA seem to be at extremes on this, the former arguing that if I make cheese doing the same thing except for being 1 field west of a region, I shouldn't be able to label it X, while many American companies think they should be able to use different cows with different feed and different processes and quality control and still call it X. I suspect there's a better middle ground, but not sure anyone will reach it.
vinceguidry 5y ago
You're using the word 'authentic' to refer to what should properly be called 'traditional'. For example. I was watching a few videos by Isaac Toups, a Cajun chef. Being Cajun myself, I was curious how he'd approach the cuisine. At first I saw a few of the things he was doing and guessed he wasn't from the Lafayette area, but in fact he is. So I watched his techniques more closely. I determined his cooking technique to be authentically Cajun, but not traditionally Cajun. He incorporated techniques from his roots, to make new dishes. This is how we can have Cajun pizza, Cajun spaghetti. Tradition is making what your grandma made, the same way she made it. Authenticity is making what your grandma would love to make if she were still young and spry. It's worth discussing how authentic a restaurant is. Taco Bell is most certainly not authentic Mexican, and different Mexican restaurants can be more or less authentic even while neither make traditional dishes. Restaurants can be purposefully inauthentic, I think fusion is as far as this can go while still remaining identifiabally ethnic. I recall a Neapolitan-style pizza joint that would put whatever you wanted on their pizzas that still had that crispy, charred crust. They didn't pretend to be traditional or even authentic. It was all about great pizza, and while it wasn't the best pizza in the city, I greatly enjoyed many meals there.

flexie 5y ago

Geographic indications is far less intrusive and far less monopolistic than a trademark is. If I make a search engine the exact same way Google does, I cannot call my search engine Google. Neither in America, nor in Europe or in Asia, or even Africa or South America. And this brand is not even 30 years old. One single company, Google, has trademarked the brand for relatively little money on the entire planet, and it serves a very limited group of billionaires and relatively few employees. A geographical indication, on the other hand, serves not just one company but typically hundreds or thousands or even ten thousands of independent companies with up to hundreds of thousands employed. If I want to sell wine as Bordeaux wine, all I have to do is to have a vineyard in Bordeaux and live up to the requirements that the other Bordeaux vineyards also comply with. Note, that Google is free to keep its trademark although it changes its services to the detriment of consumers. Meaning, it maintains the trademark that all governments of the world are paid peanuts to protect on its behalf and can continue to lure consumers to believe that it is still the same service, for example still not "doing evil". But if I change my Bordeaux wine, for example if I change the blend to include grapes that are not part of the approved Bordeaux grapes, I cannot keep the geographical indication. I am not saying trademarks should not exist or that companies with government protected trademarks should be forced not to change their products or services. But I think it's important to remember that the trademark is often sells a lie about what a company used to be. And I think the protection of trademarks should be linked to taxes paid in the geographic markets where the trademarks apply. Please note that geographic indication as a type of intellectual property right that applies to producers of products typically leaves more revenue and taxes in the countries where they are consumed. It is in many ways a more modern, inclusive and fair IPR.

lisper 5y ago
Why is drawing a boundary around a geographic region any more fair than drawing a boundary around a corporation? Either way you have a group of people who benefit and a group that does not. If you want to be part of the group that benefits from, say, the Google brand, you don't even have to move. All you have to do it buy Google stock.
- moomin 5y ago

l320093jj 5y ago

Here's the thing: I'd argue in the US calling it "feta" is not deceptive, because most people I know have no expectation that feta cheese necessarily comes from some area of Greece. I have no problem labeling a cheese "feta" if the location of production is clearly indicated. "Feta" is just "shorthand" for "feta-style". Everyone will just call it "feta" anyway. Maybe it doesn't matter if it says "feta-style" or "feta" but the whole thing seems sort of silly to me and a waste of money. It's fighting a losing battle. It's not that I don't appreciate cheeses from their original locations; it's just that this labeling initiative seems disingenuous to me, in that it seems to be fighting normal processes of language evolution and change. A better example maybe is cheddar. This is something so entrenched in American vernacular that the idea that we should insist on labeling it "cheddar-style" is clearly unnecessary. When someone says "cheddar" in the US about 99.9% of the time they are referring to a style of cheese, maybe from New York, maybe Vermont, maybe Wisconsin, maybe from England, maybe somewhere else. They're not referring to a location. "Cheddar" and "cheddar" in this context are polysemous homonyms/polysemes. Arguments about replicating some original flavor of a place of origin are missing the real underlying problem, which is that labeling a product according to its commonly understood meaning, if the location of production is clearly given in the packaging, is not deceptive. Sure, we can tack on "-style" onto everything but it's not going to keep people from ignoring it in speech.

bcrosby95 5y ago
Note that Cheddar isn't protected, but "West Country Farmhouse Cheddar" is. My cynical take is that it doesn't have a more general designation because companies couldn't profit from Cheddar the way they do if it had to be produced in Cheddar Gorge.
- 123pie123 5y ago
  I'm surprised the town/ region of cheddar haven't tried to get geographical right to cheddar cheese
  - M2Ys4U 5y ago
    IIRC, there's only one cheese producer left in the actual village of Cheddar (others have moved to the surrounding areas), and they don't want to use a a PDO.

PicassoCTs 5y ago

You can buy australian feta though and package it in greek - and then its authentic.

detaro 5y ago
no you can't.

briefcomment 5y ago

I mean, as long as they're basically using the same ingredients and process, why not say something like "Wisconsin Parmesan" instead of essentially "Fake Parmesan"? I couldn't care less about getting Parmesan from the actual place in Italy, but I would like the same ingredients and the same cooking process.

alexitorg 5y ago

It seems crazy that you can have Greek immigrants in Australia making feta cheese the traditional way and not being able to sell it as Feta. It seems to me to be protectionism pure and simple. But that is what Europeans seem to want. In the long run the reputation of products will match their quality, and if it is any good, people will be eating Australian white goat cheese instead of Greek Feta. You see that happening already with Monterey Jack instead of Mozzarella.

cheese_goddess 5y ago
> It seems crazy that you can have Greek immigrants in Australia making feta cheese the traditional way and not being able to sell it as Feta. It's not crazy at all. The PDO for feta protects only certain regions in Greece so for example the cheesemakers in Crete, the Ioanian Islands or the Cyclades, cannot sell their white, sheep's milk cheese as "feta" anymore than Canadians of Greek origin can. If not all Greeks in Greece can sell their cheese as feta, why should Canadians? Now, there are a couple of misconceptions about cheese technology in your comment that I'd like to correct: > You see that happening already with Monterey Jack instead of Mozzarella. Jack cheese is nothing like mozzarella cheese. Mozzarella is a pasta fillata cheese while Jack is not. I'm not sure why you can't tell the two apart but a possible reason might be the inferior quality mozzarella sold in the US market (I assume you are in the US if you're speaking of Jack). You wouldn't confuse Mozzarella di Buffala Campagna or Fior di Late for Jack if you were drunk on good Italian wine. > In the long run the reputation of products will match their quality, and if it is any good, people will be eating Australian white goat cheese instead of Greek Feta. Australian white goat cheese is not comparable to feta. Feta is a cheese made with sheep's milk and with the addition of up to 30% goat's milk. Goat's milk adds characteristic flavours but a 100% goat's cheese made in the same way as feta would have very different organoleptic characteristics than feta. Also, most feta cheese made in Australia is made with cow's milk.
mint2 5y ago
If I bought California olive oil and it turned out to be made in France I would feel deceived. As a consumer, If I buy something that it’s named for a region it should either come from the region or say “style” if it’s made exactly the same way but somewhere else. If not, I feel duped.