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Porkies go to Court
This comes from the IPKat's friend Paul Joseph (who was the first of the kat's correspondents to send the link). A small band of manufacturers of Melton Mowbray pies is currently slugging it out in court with Northern Foods over the right to designate pies with the geographical epithet MELTON MOWBRAY. The piemen, supported by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), seek official protection from the European Union under Regulation 2081/92. But Northern Foods, a large manufacturer based in Hull, argues that the pies are a national institution and that, having been made outside Melton Mowbray for more than 100 years, they are generic.
Northern makes own-label Meltons for Sainsbury’s, Asda and Marks & Spencer and has a 24% share of the £51 million-a-year pork pie market in Britain. Its pies are however produced in Trowbridge, Wiltshire and Market Drayton, Shropshire, while the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association says authentic pies can be made only in an 1,800-square-mile area, which includes Melton Mowbray, Leicester, Nottingham and Northampton. The case continues.The IPKat is watching this dispute with great interest. If the Meltonians win this one, he suspects that next on the list will be even more controversial: Cheddar cheese itself.
Other famous protected food from Melton Mowbray here
Things to see and do in Melton Mowbray here , here and here