How To Protect Your Sausage

Lab grown meat, GIs, CPTPP, and Winnie-the-Pooh

Mamma mia! The Italian government has announced plans to ban lab grown meat. Its reason for doing so is that it wants to safeguard the nation’s heritage. Unsurprisingly, the plans have been welcomed by the Italian farming lobby who lobbied for the ban and have stated that it’s necessary in order to protect homemade produce from ‘the attacks of multinational companies’.

This is incredibly disappointing. I believe that there is a very strong case for veganism due to the suffering caused to animals and the environmental impact of modern farming methods. However, I have absolutely no intention of giving up bacon, other meat, or cheese because it’s just so damn tasty. Lab grown meat has the potential to end suffering, protect the environment, and keep meat eaters happy. Real progress has been made in real years to produce meat grown in labs which looks, smells, feels, and tastes like the real thing. When we get to the point where it can be produced more cheaply than through normal farming then that should be a day of celebration. 

Unfortunately, progress risks being hampered by farming lobbies in countries such as Italy and the US. In the meantime billions of animals will continue to suffer, climate change will continue to threaten our futures, and businesses will miss out on investment opportunities.

This is always the way. There is great potential for innovation in food and drink but this is all too frequently hampered by lobby groups calling for their members to be protected which are then agreed to be cowardly government ministers. 

The ban on lab grown meat in Italy is just one example of this. Another such example is that of Geographical Indications (GIs). For those of you fortunate to not know what they are, GIs are essentially a sign used on products which denote a specific geographical origin. Take the humble Cornish Pasty, for example. The UK government has an actual document on what constitutes a Cornish Pasty including where it has to be made (Cornwall, unsurprisingly) and a restrictive list of ingredients. Derivate from this and you can’t call your product a Cornish Pasty. It’s the same for many other products with producers of things such as Lincolnshire Sausages lobbying for this status and protection from competitors which would allow them to join Cumberland Sausage producers in the Protected Sausage Club.

I’ve had issues with GIs for a number of years. Back when I was advising Truss at DIT (RIP) I was tasked (perhaps as some sort of punishment) with working with DEFRA to get a large number of UK products GI status as part of the UK’s negotiations with Japan. This involved myself and numerous officials working with officials in Japan to check that there were not already people in some remote Japanese village flogging things called Cornish Pasties and Stilton Cheese to the unsuspecting public.

This was an immense waste of time. Surely officials in both countries could have been doing more productive things with their time (well perhaps not in DEFRA, but still)?! Why should the government put up with being lobbied by Big Sausage and its local MP? 

Not only is it a waste of time, it’s also deeply uncompetitive. Now, we didn’t find anyone passing off a pastry with pork in them or manufactured in the local area as a ‘Cornish Pasty’ in Hachijō-jima or the Hida Mountains. However, if we had then they would probably have got a visit from a government official telling them to shut up shop. I’m obviously being tongue-in-cheek with this example, but it would have led to disruption and expense for the producer with rebranding and then losing custom in the meantime or afterwards as their former patrons no longer knee know what it is they’re selling. 

Now, I don’t think we should go nuts and just allow people to call something completely different whatever they want. You shouldn’t be able to call a cake a Cornish Pasty or a cucumber a Cumberland Sausage. However, we should take a more liberal approach like they do in the US. For example, the courts in the States recently rejected a claim brought by French and Swiss cheese consortiums over producers using the term Gruyere'. It was held that when consumers fancy a bit of that lovely cheese then they are thinking of a generic product, not one made in a specific region or way. In short, if it looks, smells, feels, and tastes like Gruyere, or a Cornish Pasty, or a Cumberland Sausage then businesses should be able to call it that regardless of where it is produced or if the methods or ingredients are slightly different. Cumberland Sausage producers from Cumberland should instead focus on their branding, making it clear to consumers that their sausages are actually made in the area using traditional means etc.

Essentially, if I decide to set up the Huddersfield Halloumi Company in my mum’s garden shed then I should be able to do so without being shut down by the government, forced to line the pockets of a trade lawyer, or appearing as a cautionary tale in Sam Lowe’s Most Favoured Nation.

I don’t think this is in any way likely as the EU really loves GIs as do producers in the UK. It’s just something we would do in an ideal world. GI Joe? More like GI No!

On a related but also completely different note, all this does raise questions about intellectual property and copyright law. I’m thinking of writing a more in-depth piece on this specific topic, but copyright length is far too long in the UK and most other countries in the world. Now of course it’s only right that those who produce something are protected from plagiarism as that incentivises them to actually produce stuff. However, the current system is far too restrictive. The children of very creative people should not be able to essentially engage in rent-seeking by demanding payment from people who wish to build on their work up to 70 years after the death of the creator.

The current system is not only rewarding those who are not producing anything, it’s also hampering innovation. Take Winnie the Pooh, for example. The copyright only recently lapsed on the original A.A. Milne character so that it can now be used for free by others (this doesn’t apply to the red t-shirt, trouserless Disney version though). A truly awful film has now just been released entitled ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood & Honey. It really is dreadful, but there is so much potential for the underlying concept of the film and for Winnie the Pooh in general. Or take the Roald Dahl books which were recently dragged into the culture wars. The real scandal should be that if people want to make new films based on his books or give them a new take then they need the permission of his progeny and give them money and this won’t change for another 40 years or so.

On the topic of protectionism, I wrote another article about CPTPP but it’s not up yet. I had an influx of trade enthusiasts subscribing to the blog last week (thanks Sam Lowe) so feel I should give the public what they want so consider this a sneak preview. My point was that despite the fears, the NFU got a lot of what they wanted out of the deal. Ultimately the UK should stop trying to protect British farmers from international competition through tariffs and quotas and instead focus on helping them to become more productive and get exporting.

Protectionism in all its forms is bad. It stifles competition, harms consumers, punishes businesses, and hampers innovation. For the most part it should be the market, not rent-seekers or the government, deciding which products are available to consumers. The government needs to take a much more liberal approach to trade and intellectual property.

I’ll probably get cancelled by the woke New Liberal Elite for saying this, but I hope you all have a very Happy Easter if celebrating it!