OUT OF ALL Slovakia's food products, only the Skalický trdelník (a kind of cake) currently has protected status within the European Union (EU). But the EU is expected to decide shortly whether bryndza (a type of sheep cheese) will also be granted protection, the SITA newswire reported.
If bryndza's application succeeds, it will be added to the list of EU food products with a so-called 'protected geographical indication.'
Other EU countries have far more protected food products than Slovakia. For example, France has 156 products with this kind of protection, Italy 165 and Spain 111. Slovakia's neighbour the Czech Republic already has 12 food products with protected geographical indication.
Food products with protected name status fall into three categories: protected designation of origin (PDO), protected geographical indication (PGI), and traditional specialty guaranteed (TSG).
Zdenka Kramplová, Slovakia's agriculture minister, has called on Slovak food processing companies to be more active in applying for special status for the names of their products from Brussels. She reminded them that if they don't manage to do this by 2011, producers from other EU countries can also apply for registration of well-known traditional Slovak products.
