Consortium for Common Food Names urges president to address cheese trade deficit
The deficit is being driven by abuse of geographical indications, CCFN said.
The Trump Administration should correct the inequity in cheese sales opportunities between the United States and the European Union (EU), especially given the EU’s anti-trade practice of abusing geographical indications (GI) policies to monopolize generic cheese names as a means to shut out competition. That is the message sent in a letter to President Trump on May 14 by the chairman of the Consortium for Common Food Names (CCFN), Errico Auricchio, who is also the president and founder of Belgioioso Cheese, Green Bay, Wis.
“The United States is an extremely profitable dairy market for the EU; we must leverage that power in correcting this deeply frustrating inequity,” Auricchio wrote. “I urge you to utilize all available tools to remedy this situation. Let us at least consider imposing the same restriction on them that they do on us: require that they not sell cheeses by these names into our market, as long as we are locked out of theirs.”