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Naming and branding wars with EU?
U.S. naming companies gear up.

Kraft might have to come up with another name for this product, which under proposed EU rules, can only come from one region in Great Britain.

BRUSSELS, Sept. 3, 2003. Maybe because we think about naming and branding companies and products in very visceral terms, we've been intrigued by the impending food fight between the European Union and the U.S. at the upcoming meeting of the World Trade Organization in Cancun, Mexico.

What is at stake is enormous as the European Union seeks to reserve the exclusive right to use names that many American companies have been slapping on their products for years. If they get their way, and Europeans tend to hang pretty tough on food issues, U.S. naming consultants could be deluged with naming projects to find replacement names for bologna, salami, mozzarella, Parmesan, Dijon mustard, Edam, feta, Bordeaux, Chianti. That's the short list.

Not only would the actual names be off limits to non-native producers, but they wouldn't be able to say "Parmesan-style cheese" or even "American Parmesan." Needless to say, U.S. food producers are aghast, claiming that the EU proposal would cost them millions of dollars in naming and branding.

But listen to Tony van der Haegen, ministerial counselor at the European Commission's delegation in Washington, DC. "I went to the shop yesterday, and, as I told my wife, I saw 'New York cheddar.' To Europeans, cheddar can only come from one region in Great Britain. In Lucerne, Greece or Italy, you would not be able to produce a cheese called cheddar. Now we want the rest of the world to apply the same rules."

Just so we don't take all this too personally, the EU has already spent years working out rules to bar member countries from taking names that originated elsewhere. In a fistfight over feta, for example, Greece triumphed over Denmark. Which means that all cheese called feta that is sold in Europe must come from Greece.

In this time of words being debased and losing their meaning thanks to the tireless efforts of politicians and the media, there is actually something quite refreshing about the idea that feta comes from Greece and that's that.

Sue Conley, owner and cheesemaker at the Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes Station, CA, thinks the EU proposal is a good idea. Her French-style cheeses have French names that are descriptive rather than geographic, such as crème fraiche and fromage blanc.

"Our whole business is founded on place and a sense of place," she said in a San Francisco Chronicle story. "I appreciate what the EU has accomplished in making specifications for cheese made in a place. I'm with them. It makes it more of a challenge for American cheesemakers to come up with ways to describe their cheese, but I think we can overcome that challenge."

Any naming consultants in the house?