European Politics of Food Origin. A Semiotic Analysis of Geographical Indications

This chapter investigates the relationship between food products and origin places within the European Union food policies. In the 1990s, the EU established a Geographical Indication (GI) system, constituted of a set of food quality brands and a legal framework for food, wine and spirits. This system, defined as a sui generis model by insiders, entails a strong EU government participation in the typical food symbolic and material modelling. The sui generis model establishes a government monopoly on the place-based labels registration and institutes an atypical kind of intellectual property based on geographic marks. By proposing a semiotic approach toward the analysis of European Geographical Indications, this contribution aims at understanding their structural functioning and their disciplinary implications. The chapter carries out a semiotic analysis of two food regulations: the Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PDO, and Balsamic Vinegar of Modena PGI. These two case studies highlight how EU GIs conduct a complex food product and territorial standardization, building two separate legal prototypes which are linked by a narrative of origin. Moreover, the semiotic analysis proposed in this chapter pushes to consider the relationship between typical foods and their origin place in opposite terms: the territory—also called terroir, can be considered as a meaning effect of the product itself. The article concludes by underscoring the cultural and political importance of local food production discipline and legal regulation in community identity building process.