An American appeals court confirmed it on Friday: the term Gruyère does refer in the United States to a common name and cannot be reserved only for cheeses of this type originating in France or Switzerland.
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The Gruyère interprofession, which represents the players in the sector in Switzerland, and the Syndicat interprofessionnel du Gruyère, its French counterpart, had tried to register the term in the American register of certified brands.
But faced with the refusal of the organization, they had filed a complaint and had lost at first instance in early 2022.
Appeals court judges upheld the decision.
There is not in the United States the same protections as in Europe on the name of food products, such as the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) for Gruyère in France, they argue in their verdict.
The agency responsible for food safety, the FDA, defines many criteria for Gruyère cheese, such as the existence of “small holes” or the fact that it is aged for at least 90 days. But does not include criteria on geographical origin.
Also “cheese, no matter where it was produced, has been labeled and sold as Gruyere in the United States for decades.” And this whether it was produced in the US state of Wisconsin or imported from the Netherlands, Germany or Austria, they add.
In conclusion, they write, the plaintiffs cannot go against “what is clear from the record: cheese consumers in the United States understand that the term ‘gruyere’ refers to a type of cheese, which makes the term generic.
This decision has been welcomed by several players in the dairy sector in the United States, including the Federation of American Dairy Farmers, who hope that it will encourage French and Swiss professional federations to “stop trying to expropriate a common name from food” by registering a mark.