Available online at www.fooddynamics.org Int. J. Food System Dynamics 2 (3), 2011, 219-236 A Multi-Criteria Approach to Assessing PDOs/PGIs: An Italian Pilot Study Francesca Galli1, Anna Carbone1, Julie A. Caswell2, and Alessandro Sorrentino1 1University of Tuscia, Italy 2University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA, USA
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[email protected] Received June 2010, accepted September 2011, available online December 2011 ABSTRACT The paper contribute to the assessment of PDO/PGI schemes by building an approach to measuring the actual performance of the PDO/PGI products in relation to the objectives of the European Regulation 510/2006. This is done through a multi-criteria ex-post analysis that compares the performance of different PDO/PGI products with respect to multiple criteria. The research presented, based on a small sample of Pdo cheese products in Italy, can be considered a pilot study that develops a comparative evaluation of the performance of PDO cheeses: i) relative to the different objectives of the schemes, ii) by using a set of suitable and informative indicators that can help to evaluate the effectiveness of a wide number of PDOs/PGIs with respect to the regulation’s o bjectives, and iii) by considering that different actors involved in PDO/PGI schemes may have different priorities with regard to the importance of different objectives in evaluating the performance of schemes. Keywords: Protected Designations of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indications (PGI), Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, Cheese 1 Introduction Geographical Indications of origin (GIs) are increasingly being adopted as public policy in the European Union for the identification of typical food products in the form of Protected Designations of Origin (PDOs) and Protected Geographical Indications (PGIs).