A host of famous British food types, including Cornish pasties, Welsh lamb and Melton Mowbray pork pies, have not been given formal protection from imitation in Japan nearly three years after Liz Truss boasted that they could be secured thanks to her “historic” trade deal.
As trade secretary, Truss described the post-Brexit trade agreement signed with Japan in September 2020 as the UK’s first landmark deal as an independent trading nation, ensuring the same tariff arrangements as the country had enjoyed when in the EU.
She further said that as part of the agreement a host of British food brands could be newly recognised in Tokyo by May 2021, in a move that would offer exporters security that their product names could not be copied by Japanese producers.
It has now emerged that the 77 such protections – also known as “geographical indication” (GI) status – said to be on track by Truss have failed to come to pass, leaving exporters to Japan “exposed”, according to the UK Protected Food Names Association.
Half of those products will have to wait at least another year for the status they need, including Whitstable oysters, Scottish wild salmon, Carmarthen ham and Yorkshire forced rhubarb, after being left out of a first tranche of 38 submitted by the UK government.
Gareth Thomas, the shadow trade minister, who unearthed the failure to secure the product names, said Rishi Sunak should demand action from Tokyo. The prime minister is in in Japan for the G7 summit of the world’s leading economies.
Thomas said: “Our food and drink producers are rightly proud when they receive protected geographical status, and we want that status guaranteed whenever the UK strikes new trade deals around the world.
“That is what the government told us had been achieved in Japan, but almost 1,000 days on the reality is totally different. Rishi Sunak needs to demand the protection that our beef, lamb, cheese and other specialist products were promised, and he should not take further delay for an answer. If he cannot deliver, it will show again why we need a Labour government.”
The process of giving protected status to certain food and drink products based on their place of origin protects exporters from imitation.
Products such as scotch and Irish whisky, and white and blue stilton, were protected under the previous EU-Japan deal that fell away after Brexit.
There had been 54 Japanese food and drink products with protected status in Great Britain and Northern Ireland and seven UK offerings with protected status in Japan.
The latter group comprised Scottish farmed salmon, white stilton, blue stilton, West Country farmhouse cheddar, scotch whisky, Irish whiskey and Irish cream liqueur.
Japan and the UK agreed to maintain these existing protections, and made a deal on an ongoing process for the proposal and recognition of other products.
A now deleted information note from the Department for International Trade had claimed: “The UK will provide Japan with our list of around 70 UK GIs in January. All of these GIs will go through examination and opposition procedures as set out in the domestic law of Japan. Unless there are exceptional circumstances … this should only take about 5 months.”
It has emerged, however, that a list of UK food and drink products proposed for protected status was not even submitted to the Japanese authorities until 30 April 2021. Of the 77 UK products still waiting for protected status in Japan, 15 are from Wales, 15 are from south-west England, 14 from Scotland and six from the West Midlands. All other regions have five or fewer.
Matthew O’Callaghan, who is chair of the UK Protected Food Names Association and the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association, said they had sought answers from the government but found it difficult to get a response. “I think they have other priorities,” he said. “We are left vulnerable.”
A spokesperson for the department for business and trade said: “We are committed to securing protected status for numerous food and drink products and are making good progress in our talks with Japan.
“The UK has a strong trading relationship with Japan - up by £3bn in 2022 - and our historic trade deal helped pave the way for us joining the CPTPP - our biggest post-Brexit free trade deal.”
