Storytelling in applications for the EU quality schemes for agricultural products and foodstuffs: place, origin and tradition

Enric Castelló

doi:10.5424/sjar/2020182-16192

Abstract

Aim of study: How are successful applications for quality labels for food and agricultural products written? This research aims to answer this question through the study of the applications for three quality labels within the EU Scheme for Agricultural and Foodstuffs: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG). The research focuses in determining the topics and narratives that describe the link with the geographical area for the two former and the traditional character for the latter.Area of study: Europe.Material and methods: Using a Qualitative Data Analysis, the research analyses 132 products registered on the scheme between January 2016 and April 2019. The researcher categorized a total of 1,724 excerpts and studied the sections on the link with the geographical area for PDOs and PGIs, and the key elements establishing the product’s traditional character for TSGs.Main results: Main results offer quantitative and qualitative outputs. They indicate that cultural and social issues make up the half of the story arguing about the products, and natural, space/place and time/history make up the second half in proportions that depend on the type of scheme. Topic and storytelling analyses revealed particular understandings of place, origins and traditions in narratives developing on agriculture, history and knowledge transference between generations. The applicants used socio-economic particularities, regional history, and environmental uniqueness to justify the special character of products.Research highlights: The results give practitioners, policymakers and institutions guidelines and recommendations about how to structure and write their applications for quality labels for food and agricultural products.

Highlights

Aim of study: How are successful applications for quality labels for food and agricultural products written? This research aims to answer this question through the study of the applications for three quality labels within the European Union (EU) Scheme for Agricultural and Foodstuffs: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG)
The European Union (EU) is known as a global agent of food quality policies on Geographical Indications (GIs), the registration scheme that protects the use of specific foodstuff and agricultural product names
The corpus was delimitated to the products registered between 1 January 2016 and 30 April 2019.4 A total of 132 different products were included in the study (87 PGI, 36 PDO, 9 Traditional Specialities Guaranteed (TSG))

Summary

Introduction

The European Union (EU) is known as a global agent of food quality policies on Geographical Indications (GIs), the registration scheme that protects the use of specific foodstuff and agricultural product names. In 1992, the European Commision (EC, 2002) introduced Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and Traditional Specialities Guaranteed (TSG), and in Agust 2002 launched a site to register these labels. The EU regulation states that a designation of origin identifies products that have their origin “in a specific place, region or, in exceptional cases, a country”. The quality of these products is “essentially or exclusively” due to a specific geographical environment with

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