A Comparative Analisys On The Traditional Food Products In Eu

This paper is intent on highlighting the differences between traditional food products registered in every member state of the EU. The legislative system protecting the „peculiar, endemic” food products was first introduced in the EU in 1992 and it was implemented in the then-member states. The countries that adhered to the EU in the following years underwent a preparation phase in terms of legislation in order to educate the producers and consumers regarding these regulations. Therefore, some countries have a history of over twenty years in recognizing and registering traditional food products (TFP), whereas newly-entered EU member states have an experience of less than ten years. This can be one of the many reasons underlying the significant discrepancy in the number of traditional food products registered in every EU member state. Throughout the paper we intend to analyse and highlight the number of traditional food products registered in the European Union’s database – DOORdatabase – by every EU member state, and also provide an overview of their status in the EU. Moreover, throughout the paper we will answer questions such as „Why does France have 255 traditional food products registered, whereas countries like Romania and Bulgaria only 4?“ aiming to justify these differences but also present the evolution of the supply of traditional food products over time. To achieve the objectives of our research, we have covered vast literature and we have processed a series of secondary data that were put at our disposal by the databases of the European Commission, the agricultural sector. The results of our research are interesting, and the graphs will help better visualize and understand the status of the supply of traditional food products from a quantitative point of view countrywide. The identified elements as influencing factors in the quantitative supply of traditional food products and their grouping in a series of criteria tantamount to the elements pertaining to the marketing macro-environment reflect in the qualitative results, therefore bringing academic value to the aforementioned paper. The practicality of this paper can be highlighted by emphasizing the need to educate the consumers (well-informed, to know which and how many “genuine” traditional food products are there) but also the producers (to know how to relate to the competition).