THE APPELLATION "GRUYÈRE" IS NOW A GENERIC TERM AND NO LONGER A PROTECTED APPELLATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
American justice confirms: Gruyère is not only Swiss or French!
The agency responsible for food safety, the FDA, defines many criteria for Gruyère cheese, such as the existence of "small holes" or the fact that it is aged for at least 90 days. But does not include criteria of geographical origin.
The Interprofession du Gruyère, which represents the players in the sector in Switzerland, and the Syndicat interprofessionnel du Gruyère, its French counterpart, had tried to register the term in the American register of certified brands. But faced with the refusal of the organization, they had filed a complaint and lost at first instance in early 2022. Judges of an appeal court confirmed this decision.
Also "cheese, no matter where it was produced, has been labeled and sold as Gruyere in the United States for decades." And this whether it was produced in the US state of Wisconsin or imported from the Netherlands, Germany or Austria, they add.
“Gruyère, generic term”
In conclusion, they write, the plaintiffs cannot go against "what is clear from the record: cheese consumers in the United States understand that the term 'gruyere' refers to a type of cheese, that which makes the term generic.
This decision has been welcomed by several players in the dairy sector in the United States, including the Federation of American Dairy Producers, who hope that it will encourage French and Swiss professional federations to "stop trying to expropriate a common name from food” by registering a mark.
