From the article:
> That means non-EU farmers and exporters take a direct hit. When the EU wins
protection for, say, Italian Parmesan and Greek feta in a deal with Japan, it
means that Australian and U.S. dairies are barred from selling their products
there under those labels. They instead have to rebrand and use labels such as
"Parmesan-style," which often turn off consumers who may see the products as
unauthentic.
Because they are! For example, as far as I can tell, most of the "feta" cheese
made in the US is made with cow's milk, whereas Greek feta is traditionally made
with sheep's milk and up to 30% goat's milk. This part of the tradition is
protected by the feta Protected Designation of Origin.
Btw, cheese made in the same way as feta, but with cow's milk, is instead known
as "telemes" in Greek (and I think telemea in Romania). Telemes is also a Greek
PDO cheese. So the cow's milk "feta" sold in the US should be more correctly
labelled as "telemes", but of course "feta" is more recognisable. On the other
hand, the Greek diaspora that the article alleges are dismayed by the EU GIs
should know the difference between feta and telemes, or at least they should if
they have brought their cheesemaking traditions with them to the New World,
again as the article alleges, and so they should be more annoyed that telemes is
sold as feta in the US and that nobody can find a good slab of feta in the
entire US.
But I digress. The article continues:
> To some, the very idea of signing away their heritage still rankles, however.
"The Old World supplied the immigrants. It seems to be very weird that you’re
saying that people can’t take culture with them," said one dairy negotiator who
declined to be named for fear of influencing current negotiations with the EU.
It's not that weird. Even in EU countries, not everyone can make a particular
kind of food or drink that has a Protected Designation of Origin. This may be
lost in translation, in the article, but for example Parmigiano Reggiano can
only be made in (quoting from wikipedia):
the provinces of Reggio Emilia, Parma, the part of Bologna west of the Reno,
and Modena (all in Emilia-Romagna); and the part of Mantua (Lombardy) on the
right/south bank of the Po. Parmigiano is the Italian adjective for Parma and
Reggiano that for Reggio Emilia.
So for instance, cheesemakers in Puglia or Sicily cannot make parmesan style
cheese and call it "Parmigiano Regiano", even though they're Italians. In the
same way, the feta cheese PDO only covers the Greek regions of Thessaly, Thrace,
Epirus, Macedonia, Central Greece, Peloponse and Lesvos, so Greek cheesemakers
in the Ionian islands cannot sell their cheese as "feta" and must sell it as
"white cheese" instead. And so on.
If Italians can't make Parmigiano regiano because they're not in Reggio Emilia,
and Greeks can't make feta in Greece because they're in the wrong area of
Greece, it is not so far fetched that Canadian Greeks can't make feta in Canada.