Geographical indication
A geographical indication is a name or sign used on products which corresponds to a specific geographical location or origin. The use of a geographical indication, as a type of indication of source, may act as a certification that the product possesses certain qualities, is made according to traditional methods, or enjoys a certain reputation, due to its geographical origin. Appellation of origin is a subtype of geographical indication where quality and reputation of a product originate from the delineated area defined under its intellectual property right registration. Governments have been protecting trade names and trademarks used in relation to food products identified with a particular region since at least the end of the nineteenth century, using laws against false trade descriptions or passing off, which protect against suggestions that a product has a certain origin, quality or association when it does not. In such cases, the limitation on competitive freedoms which results from the grant of a monopoly of use over a geographical indication is justified by governments either by consumer protection benefits or by producer protection benefits.
One of the first GI systems is the one used in France from the early part of the twentieth century known as appellation d'origine contrôlée. Items that meet geographical origin and quality standards may be endorsed with a government-issued stamp which acts as official certification of the origins and standards of the product to the consumer. Examples of products that have such'appellations of origin' include Gruyère cheese and many French wines. Among the major developing economies, India has a efficient G I tagging mechanism. Geographical indications have long been associated with the concept of terroir and with Europe as an entity, where there is a tradition of associating certain food products with particular regions. Under European Union Law, the protected designation of origin framework which came into effect in 1992 regulates the following systems of geographical indications: Protected designation of origin, protected geographical indication and Traditional Specialities Guaranteed. Geographical Indications protection is granted through the TRIPS Agreement.
See the Paris Convention, the Madrid Agreement, the Lisbon Agreement, the Geneva Act. Protection afforded to geographical indications by law is arguably two folded. On the one hand it is granted through sui generis law, e.g. in the European Union. In other words, GI protection should apply through ex-officio protection, where authorities may support and get involved in the making of GI collective dimensions together with their corresponding GI regulatory council, where ongoing discourse with the government is implied for effective inspection and quality control. On the other hand, it is granted through common law. In other words, it is similar to the protection afforded to trade marks as it can be registered through collective trade marks and through certification marks, i.e. in the United States of America. GI protection systems restrict the use of the GIs for the purpose of identifying a particular type of product, unless the product and/or its constituent materials and/or its fabrication method originate from a particular area and/or meet certain standards.
Sometimes these laws stipulate that the product must meet certain quality tests that are administered by an association that owns the exclusive right to license or allow the use of the indication. As GIs are recognised through public or private law, - depending on the GI protection system applied among the different WTO state members, either through common law or sui generis law,- the conflicts between prior trade mark registration and GIs is an international debate, yet to be resolved and what makes the GI system rather positional in terms of international trade negotiations; these conflicts are resolved through three intellectual property protection approaches: first in time -first in right approach, coexistence approach, GI superiority approach. Arguably trade marks are seen as a valuable asset in terms of private business and their economic assets while GIs are connected to socio-economic development, along the lines of sustainability in countries rich in traditional knowledge; the consumer-benefit purpose of the protection rights granted to the beneficiaries, has similarities and differences to the trade mark rights: While GIs confer a geographical origin of a good, trade marks confer a commercial origin of an enterprise.
While comparable goods are registered with GIs, similar goods and services are registered with trade marks. While a GI is a name characterised by tradition from a delineated area, a trade mark is a sign as a badge of origin for goods and services. While a GI is a collective entitlement of public-private partnership, a trade mark refers to private rights. With GIs, the beneficiaries are always a community from which regardless of, indicated in the register as applicant, they have the right to use. Trade marks distinguish goods and services between different undertakings, thus it is more individual. While with GIs its particular quality is because of the geographical area, although the human factor may play a part, with trade marks if there is any link to quality, it is because of the producer and provider. While GIs are an existing expression and is used by existing producers or traders, a trade mark is a new word or logo chosen arbitrarily. While GIs are only for products, trademarks are for products and se
Departments of France
In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. Ninety-six departments are in metropolitan France, five are overseas departments, which are classified as regions. Departments are further subdivided into 334 arrondissements, themselves divided into cantons; each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, these were called general councils; each council has a president. Their main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school buildings and technical staff, local roads and school and rural buses, a contribution to municipal infrastructures. Local services of the state administration are traditionally organised at departmental level, where the prefect represents the government; the departments were created in 1790 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity.
All of them were named after physical geographical features, rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The division of France into departments was a project identified with the French revolutionary leader the Abbé Sieyès, although it had been discussed and written about by many politicians and thinkers; the earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of d'Argenson. They have inspired similar divisions in some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a two-digit number, the "Official Geographical Code", allocated by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. Overseas departments have a three-digit number; the number is used, for example, in the postal code, was until used for all vehicle registration plates. While residents use the numbers to refer to their own department or a neighbouring one, more distant departments are referred to by their names, as few people know the numbers of all the departments.
For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as "the 45". In 2014, President François Hollande proposed to abolish departmental councils by 2020, which would have maintained the departments as administrative divisions, to transfer their powers to other levels of governance; this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René d'Argenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration. Before the French Revolution, France gained territory through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces. During the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved in order to weaken old loyalties; the modern departments, as all-purpose units of the government, were created on 4 March 1790 by the National Constituent Assembly to replace the provinces with what the Assembly deemed a more rational structure.
Their boundaries served two purposes: Boundaries were chosen to break up France's historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences and build a more homogeneous nation. Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a day's ride of the capital of a department; this was a security measure, intended to keep the entire national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of many rural areas far from any centre of government; the old nomenclature was avoided in naming the new departments. Most were named after other physical features. Paris was in the department of Seine. Savoy became the department of Mont-Blanc; the number of departments 83, had been increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleon's defeats in 1814–1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size and the number of departments was reduced to 86.
In 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice and a portion of the Var department; the 89 departments were given numbers based on the alphabetical order of their names. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. A small part of Haut-Rhin became known as the Territoire de Belfort; when France regained the ceded departments after World War I, the Territoire de Belfort was not re-integrated into Haut-Rhin. In 1922, it became France's 90th department; the Lorraine departments were not changed back to their original boundaries, a new Moselle department was created in the regaine
Sheep milk
Sheep's milk is the milk of domestic sheep. It is used to make cultured dairy products such as cheese; some of the most popular sheep cheeses include feta and Roquefort. Specialized dairy breeds of sheep yield higher amounts of milk compared to other breeds of sheep; some of the most common dairy breeds include: East Friesian Sarda Lacaune British Milk Sheep Chios Awassi Assaf Zwartbles In the U. S. the most common dairy breeds are the Lacaune. Finding a dairy sheep producer can be challenging, so some may choose a meat or wool breed, which do not produce as much milk as a dairy breed, but produce enough milk to create small amounts of cheese and other products. Female sheep do not produce milk constantly. Rather, they produce milk during the 80–100 days after lambing. Sheep breed in the fall, which means that a majority of lambs are born in the winter or early spring. Milk production decreases and stops when lambs are weaned or when the days become shorter; this means. Through the use of controlled internal drug release, ewes can be bred out of season.
CIDR drugs contain progesterone, released into the bloodstream, bringing the animal into estrus. In this way, ewes can be bred at different times throughout the year, providing farms with a year-round supply of milk. Meat and wool breeds of sheep lactate for 90-150 days, while dairy breeds can lactate for 120-240 days. Dairy sheep are able to produce higher yields of milk per ewe per year. Dairy sheep can produce 400-1100 lbs of milk per year while others sheep produce 100-200 lbs of milk per year. Crossbred ewes produce 300-650 lbs of milk per year. Sheep milk cheeses include the feta of Roquefort of France, Manchego of Spain. Yogurts some forms of strained yogurt, may be made from sheep's milk. Milk composition analysis, per 100 grams: Sheep milk is high in fat and conjugated linoleic acid compared to other milk producing species. There is a large amount of solids present in the milk; this makes sheep milk an excellent choice for making cheese and it produces higher yields of cheese compared to other milk producing species.
One liter of sheep milk will produce a far higher amount of cheese than one liter of cow milk. Goat milk Moose milk Donkey milk List of dairy products List of sheep milk cheeses Sheep dairying at sheep101.com Sheep dairying documentary by Cooking Up A Story
Stilton cheese
Stilton is an English cheese, produced in two varieties: Blue, known for its characteristic strong smell and taste, the lesser-known White. Both have been granted the status of a protected designation of origin by the European Commission, which requires that only cheese produced in the three counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire and made according to a strict code may be called "Stilton", thus cheese made in the village of Stilton, now in Cambridgeshire could not be sold as "Stilton". Frances Pawlett, a "skilled cheese maker" of Wymondham, has traditionally been credited as the person who set modern Stilton cheese's shape and style characteristics in the 1720s, but others have been named. A recipe for a Stilton cheese was published in 1721 by Richard Bradley first Professor of Botany at Cambridge University. Another early printed reference to Stilton cheese appeared in William Stukeley's Itinerarium Curiosum, Letter V, dated October 1722. Daniel Defoe in his 1724 work A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain notes, "We pass'd Stilton, a town famous for cheese, call'd our English Parmesan, is brought to table with the mites, or maggots round it, so thick, that they bring a spoon with them for you to eat the mites with, as you do the cheese."According to the Stilton Cheesemaker's Association, the first person to market Blue Stilton cheese was Cooper Thornhill, owner of the Bell Inn on the Great North Road, in the village of Stilton, Huntingdonshire.
Traditional legend has it that in 1730, Thornhill discovered a distinctive blue cheese while visiting a small farm near Melton Mowbray in rural Leicestershire – in Wymondham. He fell in love with the cheese and made a business arrangement that granted the Bell Inn exclusive marketing rights to Blue Stilton. Soon thereafter, wagon-loads of cheese were being delivered to the inn. Since a main stagecoach route from London to Northern England, the Great North Road, passed through the village of Stilton he was able to promote the sale of this cheese and the fame of Stilton spread. In 1936 the Stilton Cheesemakers' Association was formed to lobby for regulation to protect the quality and origin of the cheese, in 1966 Stilton was granted legal protection via a certification trade mark, the only British cheese to have received this status. Blue Stilton's distinctive blue veins are created by piercing the crust of the cheese with stainless steel needles, allowing air into the core; the manufacturing and ripening process takes nine to twelve weeks.
For cheese to use the name "Stilton", it must be made in one of the three counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, must use pasteurised local milk. The manufacturers of Stilton cheese in these counties applied for and received Protected Geographical Status in 1996; as of September 2016 just six dairies are licensed to make Stilton, each being subject to regular audit by an independent inspection agency accredited to European Standard EN 45011. Four of the licensed dairies are based in the Vale of Belvoir, which straddles the Nottinghamshire-Leicestershire border; this area is regarded as the heartland of Stilton production, with dairies located in the town of Melton Mowbray and the villages of Colston Bassett, Cropwell Bishop, Long Clawson and Saxelbye. Another Leicestershire dairy was located in the grounds of Quenby Hall near the village of Hungarton, outside the accepted boundaries of the Vale of Belvoir. Quenby Hall restarted Stilton production in a new dairy in August 2005 but the business folded in 2011.
The former Dairy Crest-owned licensed dairy that produced Stilton at Hartington in Derbyshire was acquired by the Long Clawson dairy in 2008 and closed in 2009, with production transferred to Leicestershire. Two former employees set up the Hartington Creamery at Pikehall in Hartington parish, licensed in 2014. Stilton cheese can not be produced in the village. Stilton village is not in the three permitted counties; the Original Cheese Company applied to Defra to amend the Stilton PDO to include the village but the application was rejected in 2013. Stilton cheese was manufactured in Staffordshire; the Nuttall family of Beeby, Leicestershire opened a Stilton cheese factory in Uttoxeter in 1892 to take advantage of the local milk and good transport links. However, this enterprise did not last long and the site became a general dairy. To be called "Blue Stilton", a cheese must: Be made only in the three counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire from local milk, pasteurised before use. Have the traditional cylindrical shape.
Form its own crust or coat. Be unpressed. Contain delicate blue veins radiating from the centre. Have a "taste profile typical of Stilton". Minimum 48% milk fat in the dry matterStilton has a typical fat content of 35%, protein content of 23%. A number of blue cheeses are made in a similar way to Blue Stilton; these cheeses get their blue veins and distinct flavour from the use of one or more saprotrophic fungi such as Penicillium roqueforti and Penicillium glaucum. Stichelton is made in the same way as Stilton cheese and uses cows' milk from a permitted county, but the milk is unpasteurised and so under the PDO it cannot be designated as true St
Bleu d'Auvergne
Bleu d'Auvergne is a French blue cheese, named for its place of origin in the Auvergne region of south-central France. It is made from cow's milk, is one of the cheeses granted the Appellation d'origine contrôlée from the French government. Bleu d'Auvergne is of recent origin, developed in the mid-1850s by a French cheesemaker named Antoine Roussel. Roussel noted that the occurrence of blue molds on his curd resulted in an agreeable taste, conducted experiments to determine how veins of such mold could be induced. After several failed tests, Roussel discovered that the application of rye bread mold created the veining, that pricking the curd with a needle provided increased aeration, it encouraged its growth. Subsequently, his discovery and techniques spread throughout the region. Today, bleu d'Auvergne is prepared via mechanical needling processes, it is aged for four weeks in cool, wet cellars before distribution, a short period for blue cheeses. Bleu d'Auvergne to a lesser extent than other blue cheeses.
Some recipes use a weaker form of mold, Penicillium glaucum, to create the blue veins, rather than the Penicillium roqueforti used in Roquefort and other blue cheeses. Bleu d'Auvergne is used in salad dressings and pasta seasonings, it is a good cheese for snacking. Sweet wines such as dessert-style riesling and sauvignon blanc or strong, robust red wines are recommended to accompany it as well as rich, dark beer such as English barley wine or American porter, which have both the sweetness and bold flavor required to balance the cheese
Mold
A mold or mould is a fungus that grows in the form of multicellular filaments called hyphae. In contrast, fungi that can adopt a single-celled growth habit are called yeasts. Molds are a large and taxonomically diverse number of fungal species in which the growth of hyphae results in discoloration and a fuzzy appearance on food; the network of these tubular branching hyphae, called a mycelium, is considered a single organism. The hyphae are transparent, so the mycelium appears like fine, fluffy white threads over the surface. Cross-walls may delimit connected compartments along the hyphae, each containing one or multiple, genetically identical nuclei; the dusty texture of many molds is caused by profuse production of asexual spores formed by differentiation at the ends of hyphae. The mode of formation and shape of these spores is traditionally used to classify molds. Many of these spores are colored, making the fungus much more obvious to the human eye at this stage in its life-cycle. Molds are considered to be microbes and do not form a specific taxonomic or phylogenetic grouping, but can be found in the divisions Zygomycota and Ascomycota.
In the past, most molds were classified within the Deuteromycota. Molds cause biodegradation of natural materials, which can be unwanted when it becomes food spoilage or damage to property, they play important roles in biotechnology and food science in the production of various foods, antibiotics and enzymes. Some diseases of animals and humans can be caused by certain molds: disease may result from allergic sensitivity to mold spores, from growth of pathogenic molds within the body, or from the effects of ingested or inhaled toxic compounds produced by molds. There are thousands of known species of molds, which have diverse life-styles including saprotrophs, mesophiles and thermophiles and a few opportunistic pathogens of humans, they all require moisture for growth and some live in aquatic environments. Like all fungi, molds derive energy not through photosynthesis but from the organic matter on which they live, utilising heterotrophy. Molds secrete hydrolytic enzymes from the hyphal tips; these enzymes degrade complex biopolymers such as starch and lignin into simpler substances which can be absorbed by the hyphae.
In this way molds play a major role in causing decomposition of organic material, enabling the recycling of nutrients throughout ecosystems. Many molds synthesise mycotoxins and siderophores which, together with lytic enzymes, inhibit the growth of competing microorganisms. Molds can grow on stored food for animals and humans, making the food unpalatable or toxic and are thus a major source of food losses and illness. Many strategies for food preservation are to prevent or slow mold growth as well as growth of other microbes. Molds reproduce by producing large numbers of small spores, which may contain a single nucleus or be multinucleate. Mold spores can be sexual; some molds produce small, hydrophobic spores that are adapted for wind dispersal and may remain airborne for long periods. Other mold spores are more suited to water dispersal. Mold spores are spherical or ovoid single cells, but can be multicellular and variously shaped. Spores may cling to fur. Although molds can grow on dead organic matter everywhere in nature, their presence is visible to the unaided eye only when they form large colonies.
A mold colony does not consist of discrete organisms but is an interconnected network of hyphae called a mycelium. All growth occurs at hyphal tips, with cytoplasm and organelles flowing forwards as the hyphae advance over or through new food sources. Nutrients are absorbed at the hyphal tip. In artificial environments such as buildings and temperature are stable enough to foster the growth of mold colonies seen as a downy or furry coating growing on food or other surfaces. Few molds can begin growing at temperatures of 4 °C or below, so food is refrigerated at this temperature; when conditions do not enable growth to take place, molds may remain alive in a dormant state depending on the species, within a large range of temperatures. The many different mold species vary enormously in their tolerance to temperature and humidity extremes. Certain molds can survive harsh conditions such as the snow-covered soils of Antarctica, refrigeration acidic solvents, anti-bacterial soap and petroleum products such as jet fuel.
Xerophilic molds are able to grow in dry, salty, or sugary environments, where water activity is less than 0.85. Common genera of molds include: The Kōji molds are a group of Aspergillus species, notably Aspergillus oryzae, secondarily A. sojae, that have been cultured in eastern Asia for many centuries. They are used to ferment a wheat mixture to make soybean paste and soy sauce. Koji molds break down the starch in rice, sweet potatoes, etc. A process called saccharification, in the production of shōchū and other distilled spirits. Koji molds are used in the preparation of Katsuobushi. Red rice yeast is a product of the mold Monascus purpureus grown on rice, is common in Asian diets; the yeast contains several compounds collectively known as monacolins, which are known to inhibit cholesterol synthesis. A study has shown that red rice yea
Appellation d'origine contrôlée
The appellation d'origine contrôlée is the French certification granted to certain French geographical indications for wines, cheeses and other agricultural products, all under the auspices of the government bureau Institut national des appellations d'origine, now called Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité. It is based on the concept of terroir; the origins of AOC date to the year 1411. The first French law on viticultural designations of origin dates to August 1, 1905, whereas the first modern law was set on May 6, 1919, when the Law for the Protection of the Place of Origin was passed, specifying the region and commune in which a given product must be manufactured, has been revised on many occasions since then. On July 30, 1935, the Comité National des appellations d'origine, with representatives of the government and the major winegrowers, was created to manage the administration of the process for wines at the initiative of deputy Joseph Capus. In the Rhône wine region Baron Pierre Le Roy Boiseaumarié, a trained lawyer and winegrower from Châteauneuf-du-Pape obtained legal recognition of the "Côtes du Rhône" appellation of origin in 1936.
After World War II the committee became the public-private Institut National des Appellations d'Origine. The AOC seal was mandated by French laws in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. On July 2, 1990, the scope of work of the INAO was extended beyond wines to cover other agricultural products. AOCs vary in size; some cover vast expanses with a variety of climatic and soil characteristics, while others are small and uniform. For example, the Côtes du Rhône AOC "covers some 400 square kilometres, but within its area lies one of the smallest AOCs, Château-Grillet, which occupies less than 4 hectares of land." The INAO guarantees that all AOC products will hold to a rigorous set of defined standards. The organization stresses that AOC products will be produced in a consistent and traditional manner with ingredients from classified producers in designated geographical areas; the products must further be aged at least in the respective designated area. Under French law, it is illegal to manufacture and sell a product under one of the AOC-controlled geographical indications if it does not comply with the criteria of the AOC.
AOC products can be identified by a seal, printed on the label in wines, with cheeses, on the rind. To prevent any possible misrepresentation, no part of an AOC name may be used on a label of a product not qualifying for that AOC; this strict label policy can lead to confusion in cases where towns share names with appellations. If the town of origin of a product contains a controlled appellation in its name, the producer is enjoined from listing anything more than a cryptic postal code. For example, there are a dozen townships in l'Aude that have Cabardès in their names, several of which are not within the geographical boundaries of the Cabardès AOC. Any vineyard that produces wine in one of those towns must not mention the name of the town of origin on the product labels. There are over 300 French wines entitled to the designation AOC on their label. Legislation concerning the way vineyards are identified makes recognizing the various AOCs challenging for wine drinkers not accustomed to the system.
Distinguishing classifications requires knowledge of esoteric label laws such as "Unless the wine is from a Premier Cru vineyard, the vineyard name must be printed in characters no more than half the height of the ones used for the village name"On the other hand, while the process of label approval is enforced to the millimetre, the quality control for the wine in the bottle is much less strict. While a blind taster must approve the wine for it to receive AOC classification, this tasting occurs before the product is bottled, by a local expert who may well have ties to the local vintners. If the taster is objective, the wine sample may not be representative of the actual product, there is no way to verify that the finished bottled product is the same as the original AOC sample. In 1925, Roquefort became the first cheese to be awarded an AOC label, since over 40 cheeses have been assigned AOC status. On August 15, 1957, the National Assembly gave AOC status to the poultry of Bresse. In 2006, it awarded AOC status to salt marsh lamb raised in the Bay of the Somme.
In 1981, the AOC label was given to Haute-Provence Lavender Essential Oil. It refers to a high-quality production and concerns only the essential oil of fine lavender - Lavandula angustifolia; the fields must be located within a specific territory at a minimum altitude of 800 meters. This geographic area covers 284 communities in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Hautes-Alpes, Drôme and Vaucluse regions. Lentils from Le Puy-en-Velay have AOC status. Honey from the island of Corsica has been given AOC status. There are six certified varietals of Corsican honey: Printemps, Maquis de printemps, Miellats du maquis, Châtaigneraie, Maquis d'été, Maquis d'automne. France recognizes the Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vendée AOC regions for butter; the Beurre Charentes-Poitou has been assigned AOC status in 1979. Armagnac, Calvados and Martinique Rhum Agricole all have AOC status. Many other countries have based their controlled place name systems on th
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listen); Occitan: ròcafòrt [ˌrɔkɔˈfɔɾt]) is a sheep milk cheese from the south of France, and together with Gorgonzola, Bleu d'Auvergne, Danablu and Stilton is one of the world's best known blue cheeses.[4] Though similar cheeses are produced elsewhere, EU law dictates that only those cheeses aged in the natural Combalou caves of Roquefort-sur-Soulzon may bear the name Roquefort, as it is a recognised geographical indication, or has a protected designation of origin.
