Pluck of the Irish
A while back we commented here about the dispute between the good folks of Bandon, Oregon and the people who make Tillamook Cheese, over the Bandonites' right to use the word "Bandon" in the names of their businesses. Tillamook, which makes a cheese that it calls "Bandon" (even though it isn't made in that town any more), is hassling real Bandonites about the name.
Well, now the dispute's gone international, with the folks in Bandon, Ireland telling the cheese people in Tillamook that what they're doing is unfair. Good for the Irish, who also make a "Bandon cheese."
Last I heard, Bandon, Oregon was threatening legal action to stop Tillamook from calling their product by that name any more. Go, Bandon!
| Posted at 1:46 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (4)
There have been some recent changes in European law that were made to protect consumers from fraud. They concern labeling food with misleading location names, i.e. Italian sauage has to come from Italy, French bread has to be baked in France.
It began with an English supermarket chain selling some type of lunch meat that is a 'famous' product of a town in Italy, but instead of buying from that town the chain had it made in Britain. [This is from memory of reading the BBC reports.]
As a result the EU passed a law that says if you use a placename for a product, the product has to be made at that place.
Under the law Tillamook can't export their cheese to Europe under the name "Bandon".
Posted by Bryan | January 19, 2004 6:37 PM
And the US has some laws regarding preventing the registration of a geographically mis-descriptive mark (ie naming a product with a geographic name like Bandon and that product generally being known as connected with that place/region, but the product not actually being made there).
IMHO, the citizens of Bandon have good chance to canel that registration if they act quickly enough. Why quickly? They'll need to show that cheese is associated with Bandon. The longer cheese is not actually made there, the harder it will be to show.
Posted by hilsy | January 19, 2004 7:01 PM
Maybe now the EU will finally do something about getting rid of that awful and ubiquitous-only-in-American-but-not-French restaurants... french dressing.
Posted by Wm Duffy | January 20, 2004 9:02 AM
On the flip side, we should offer a stipend to any nation or non-USA city that is willing to supply its name to that miserable processed cheese product called "American" cheese.
Posted by Isaac Laquedem | January 21, 2004 4:10 PM