EU voluntary certification schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs

This chapter focusses on certification schemes and ‘quality’ linked to the geographical origin of agricultural products, foodstuffs and wines. In the EU, consumers often associate ‘quality’ with the origin of these products and consequently, the demand for certification schemes has grown. EU rules for protecting geographical indications and specific characters of agricultural products and foodstuffs were first established in 1992. Nowadays, the main rules regulating quality schemes linked to geographical origin are essentially contained, for agricultural products and foodstuffs, in Regulation (EU) No. 1151/2012, and for wines, in Regulation (EU) No. 1308/2013. The European quality schemes for Protected Designation of Origin, Protected Geographical Indication, and Traditional Speciality Guarantee cover more than 3150 products all over the world. – 898 are Italian (295 foodstuffs and 603 wines). It is common knowledge that the country hit hardest by counterfeiting and agro-piracy is Italy. At the end of this chapter, this phenomenon is also analysed by referring to work by the Ispettorato Centrale della tutela della Qualità e Repressione Frodi dei prodotti agroalimentari (ICQRF), Italy’s National Authority for Agri-Food Control.