Abstract

Traditional Food Products are an important part of the culture, identity and heritage of a local community. The aim of this paper is to analyze the possibility of considering Traditional Food Products such as «cultural goods». The first part of this paper describes the national and EU legislation for the protection of quality agricultural products and foodstuffs. EU law lays down stringent requirements guaranteeing the standards of all European products. In addition, EU quality schemes identify products and foodstuffs farmed and produced to exacting specifications; these are three EU schemes known as Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (TSG). The second part of this paper is devoted to the analysis of the Italian legislation on culture, in particular the Code of cultural heritage and landscape, to verify if the Traditional Food Products are part of cultural heritage and «cultural goods» in the strictly legal sense.