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ARLINGTON, VA – Today, the Consortium for Common Food Names (CCFN) praised the current Administration for their proactive defense of common names during U.S. Trade Representative Chief Agricultural Negotiator Doug McKalip’s two-day trip to Wisconsin to meet with U.S. dairy industry representatives and amplify U.S. government efforts to protect common food and beverage names.

McKalip discussed the set of commitments outlined by the US-Chile agreement, which will safeguard the rights of U.S. cheese and meat exporters to use certain common names – such as “parmesan” and “prosciutto” – to market and sell their products in the Chilean market.

“CCFN greatly appreciates the work of USDA and USTR to proactively work to defend common names with a key country. Ambassador McKalip is demonstrating that we can pursue a win-win situation of coexisting with products from Europe,” said Jaime Castaneda, Executive Director. “However, Chile is just one of many markets that the European Union has targeted to monopolize common names. Looking forward, it’s critical that the U.S. government create the necessary leverage to secure the protection of export opportunities for common name producers in other markets as well.”

Throughout his meetings this week with dairy and meat producers, processors, and industry organizations, McKalip elaborated on the efforts by US government to balance the EU’s aggressive stance on GIs and spent time learning about the industry’s wider set of trade challenges and priorities.

Please find more background on common names at www.commonfoodnames.com and CCFN’s response to the U.S.-Chile agreement here.