Serious harm could result from local supplier focus, regional food firms warn

For instance, in the West Country interest in branded products are growing, as demonstrated by the launch of a consultation on a Protected Geographical Indications (PGI) for West Country beef and lamb last month.

But the region’s branding potential has proved a mixed blessing for some West Country producers.

Callestick Farm Cornish Dairy Ice Cream director Angela Parker told FoodManufacture.co.uk that the proliferation of brands using ‘Devon or ‘Cornish’ to promote ice cream had made it difficult for firm’s such as hers to stand out.

Limited listings potential​

She added that large retailers are only interested in carrying one regionally branded product in each category because of limited space in the freezer section.

Meanwhile, Parker said, independents in other regions preferred to concentrate on suppliers local to them, because of concerns over food miles.

Ann Muller, owner of Ann’s Pasties said the PGI protected names scheme for Cornish pasties also put the majority of small pasty producers at risk, since most use top-crimping rather than side crimping, which is required under PGI rules.

The decision to side-crimp pasties was made for commercial and not historical reasons, said Muller, whose pasties are top crimped. She said that 60% of Cornish pasty makers crimp on the top, with side-crimping better suited to machine production.

Pasty facism​

Since there is a long history of top crimping, Muller described the decision by the Cornish Pasty Association – the body behind the PGI – to only include side crimping as “pasty fascism”.

Simon Byron-Edmond, md of Chunk of Devon added that the decision to allow pasties to be made with as little as 12.5% meat that can be minced and sourced from outside the region was also made for commercial reasons.

He said Chunk of Devon had never marketed its pasties as Cornish due to local rivalry, but believed that products should be judged on their quality and not origin, something he said the PGI had undermined.

Although PGIs were created in part to protect small producers, a 2003 study into their impact questioned the economic benefits smaller producers derive from them and whether it was the right course for them to pursue.

The study said PGIs may, “exclude a big part of local firms and/or increase their production and marketing costs, or, alternatively, exclude them from the use of a traditional product name”​.