Why is there a legal battle over Gruyere between America, France, and Switzerland?
In March 2023 news broke that a Virginia appeals court had upheld the December 2021 ruling that American cheese could use the name Gruyere. The original case was over Gruyere makers from France and Switzerland wanting exclusive use of Gruyere for their cheese. But why are France and Switzerland going to court over what Americans call their cheese? That is what this video is all about.
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Sources
Virginia court cases:
Interprofession Du Gruyere v. US Dairy Export (575 F.Supp.3d 627 (2021), United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Alexandria Division, December 15, 2021).
Interprofession du Gruyere v. US Dairy Export Council (United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, No. 22-1041, March 3, 2023).
Gruyere regulations:
France’s Gruyere PGI: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conte...
Switzerland’s Gruyere AOP: https://www.gruyere.com/fileadmin/doc...
FDA regulations: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/script...
Other:
"Definition Pdo-Pgi", Swiss PDO-PGI Association https://www.aop-igp.ch/en/about-pdo-p....
"Le Gruyère Aop", Swiss PDO-PGI Association https://www.aop-igp.ch/en/le-gruyere-aop.
Boisard, Pierre. Camembert: A National Myth. Translated by Richard Miller. Berkely and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003.
Commission, European, "eAmbrosia: The European Geographical Indications Register" https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farmin....
Donnelly, Catherine, ed. The Oxford Companion to Cheese. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Kindstedt, Paul. Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilisation. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2012.
Wright, George. "Us-Made Cheese Can Also Be Called 'Gruyere', Court Rules." BBC News, 4 March 2023.
Zappalaglio, Andrea. The Transformation of EU Geographical Indications Law. New York: Taylor & Francis, 2021.
Images
French Gruyere (public domain)
Camembert le Chatelain (public domain)
Roquefort (public domain)
Camembert (pixabay)
Gruyere on plate (pixabay)
Gruyere with crackers (public domain)
Le Gruyere Switzerland (Le Gruyère AOP, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Seal of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (public domain)
00:00 Introduction
00:39 What do cheeses need protection?
02:11 What was the solution?
06:09 What’s the battle over Gruyere about?
09:30 Outro
#gruyere #cheese #cheesehistory #america #switzerland #roquefort #camembert #pdo
