America’s dairy farmers supply milk for some of the highest-quality cheeses in the world – made by our world-class cheesemakers. U.S.-produced Parmesan, feta, Asiago and other specialty cheeses regularly best European competitors at international competitions (if they are allowed to compete), earning American cheesemakers loyal consumer bases all around the globe.
Last year, the U.S. dairy industry exported $2.2 billion worth of cheese overseas, making it the largest individual country exporter in the world. These exports play a vital role in supporting America’s 26,000 dairy farms and millions of other workers up and down the U.S. dairy supply chain.
While global demand for cheese is expected to continue to grow in the coming decades, American dairy exporters may not have the inside track on reaching these new customers. The reason, unfortunately, is political.
Over the last decade, the European Union (EU) has undergone a campaign to confiscate common food and beverage names through the misuse of geographical indication (GI) rules and free trade agreements. Legitimate GIs are sensible regulations to ensure that food and beverage labels accurately reflect a product’s origin like “Camembert du Normandie,” where the compound name is protected but the individual generic terms like “Camembert” are free to use – regardless of where the producer is based.
Unfortunately, European politicians and officials have advanced a strategy of confiscating common names under the guise of GI protections in an attempt to garner political support from a small but vocal group of European farmers. This abuse of the GI system to claim common names that have long been a part of the public domain eliminates competition from the U.S. and elsewhere – hurting not only U.S. producers but EU consumers as well. Common cheese names such as Parmesan, feta and Asiago are among others especially at risk of EU confiscation.
Our initial attempts to push back began many years ago as an effort to prevent the EU wine and spirits agreement in the World Trade Organization from proliferating to other products. As the EU pursued a more proactive and aggressive trade policy, we convened an international coalition of cheese, meat and wine producers to create the Consortium for Common Food Names (CCFN) to fight back.
Since our founding in 2012, we have pursued every avenue available, including opposing bad-faith trademark applications and preserving market access for food and beverages with common names. Today, CCFN employs a global legal strategy to educate foreign governments, the U.S. government and intellectual property organizations around the world and in Geneva.
Not to be deterred, the EU has recently escalated its efforts by leveraging its political and economic influence to “export” its misuse of GI rules to third-party countries through trade agreement negotiations. If only Italian cheesemakers can call Parmesan “Parmesan” in a country, it effectively monopolizes the product and shuts U.S. and other non-European producers out of that market.
In addition to fighting illegitimate GI trademark applications, CCFN has also taken a proactive approach, encouraging the U.S. government and Congress to step up and work with trading partners to establish safeguards for common names. Specifically, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the USDA need to leverage trade tools to establish robust common food and beverage name protections with our trading partners. Over the past few presidential administrations, those levers have only been pulled in specific circumstances, and there has not been a concerted and comprehensive effort to defend common names.
Thankfully, there is a promising piece of legislation that could change that passive approach.
Last year, a bipartisan group of members of Congress introduced the Safeguarding American Value-Added Exports (SAVE) Act. The first farm bill effort on common names, the SAVE Act would impel the USTR and USDA to step up to the negotiating table and prioritize the protection of common names, through a two-step approach:
- First, the bill would require the secretary of agriculture to determine a list of common names frequently subject to GI restrictions around the world and define them. Currently, no such list exists, which more easily allows global competitors to abuse GI rules.
- Secondly, the bill prompts the secretary of agriculture to coordinate with the USTR to use agreements, memoranda of understanding and other instruments to ensure that American producers will be able to use the common names as identified by the USDA.
The SAVE Act has garnered bipartisan backing, and CCFN is working to ensure its inclusion in the next farm bill.
Meanwhile, the fight continues in the trenches. In November, we worked with a CCFN member to secure a precedent-setting legal victory in Singapore over the right for anyone to use the term “Parmesan.” The court ruling follows a 2023 victory here at home when a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that “Gruyere” is a generic term, marking the end of a long-running European effort to monopolize the name in the U.S.
American dairy farmers and cheesemakers have built a reputation of producing high-quality cheeses that are known and loved around the world. CCFN continues the fight to protect the rights of U.S. producers so that the cheesemaking tradition practiced for generations around the world can continue for generations to come.
