The Consortium for the protection of Gorgonzola PDO cheese has acted well in advance to retain its protection in the United Kingdom even after Brexit: in fact, it applied ahead of time and obtained in 2019 from UKIPO (the UK Intellectual Property Office) the “Grant of Protection”, i.e. the national protection and registration of the GORGONZOLA certification mark, in addition to the CG collective mark.
The effective exit from the European Union of the United Kingdom at the end of January led to a change in the agreements on the protection of registered trademarks and the import of PDO products from other countries. Currently, the protection of PDO and PGI marks is guaranteed by Community rules for the European countries: an Italian denomination benefits from the same protection across all EU countries. Now, the United Kingdom will have to create their new control body to allow the import of PDO products with new rules that are still being defined.
The final registration of the mark is therefore a guarantee for consumers to protect them from cases of counterfeiting and avoid unpleasant surprises when buying Gorgonzola PDO abroad, as well as for producers because the protection will continue to strengthen sales to the United Kingdom, which for many years has been among the main lovers of Gorgonzola PDO.
Currently the United Kingdom is the fourth largest export country in the world for Gorgonzola PDO, with over 1100 tons exported and a turnover of over 7 million Euros. (2018 figures).
