Kai Chutney from Odisha is one of the latest food items to receive the Geographical Indications (GI) tag in India. As GI-tagged foods appear in news headlines and on supermarket shelves, Ranjana Sundaresan gets to the bottom of it: what gets the GI-tag, how easy is to get one, and what even is the point?
(This is an evolving story. If you have had any experiences with the process of gi-tagging food products we would love to hear from you.)
When The Locavore asked me to look into geographical indications in India, I thought it was going to be a fairly cut-and-dry project, free from the subjectivity that often accompanies food discourse. I should have known better when the words ‘traditional’ and ‘authentic’ kept popping up. Nothing is more fraught with ‘food fight’ vibes than these words, in my honest opinion. As I fell down this rabbit hole, one thing was clear: there’s nothing straightforward about the GI-tag.
Let’s dive right in.
What exactly is a geographical indication?
You probably instinctively have figured out what this is. In India, practically everyone is familiar with Nagpur oranges or Darjeeling tea—foods for which places are used as adjectives, thus bringing to mind a certain uniqueness linked to them. Well, that’s kind of it, really. It is a form of intellectual property, sort of like a trademark, but given to products from a certain place rather than from a certain company.
Geographical indication tags, or GI tags, identify a product as originating from a particular place and possessing certain qualities, characteristics, or reputation that are due to that place of origin.
For instance, Nagpur oranges are a variety of mandarin oranges that are grown in Nagpur and Vidharbha regions of Maharashtra. But in order for it to receive a GI-tag, it must conform to certain parameters such as size, colour, number of seeds, flavour, and aroma. This also means that it can be traced back to the original growers, who are registered under the Geographical Indication of Goods, (Registration and Protection) Act 1999, which also protects their rights to this unique fruit.
As such, the GI status offers legal protections since only registered or authorised producers are allowed to use the tag. The GI registration allows registered parties to launch a lawsuit for infringement against unauthorised parties using the tag.
Even though the concept of GI was introduced by the World Trade Organization in 1994, it may actually have its roots in ancient times, when place names were used to identify the origin and quality of products. For example, as early as the 5th century BCE, wine produced in the Greek island of Chios was one of the most prized wines and considered an expensive luxury product. It is thought to be the first red wine though it was called black wine back then.
But there’s no need to go that far from home for proof of this. Spices like pepper and cardamom from India were worth their weight in gold, and the result of that reputation is, as they say, history.
In India, the GI tag system came into force in 2003.
Geographical indication tags, or GI tags, identify a product as originating from a particular place and possessing certain qualities, characteristics, or reputation that are due to that place of origin.
One of the main objectives of the GI tag is to protect and preserve traditional goods and crafts, and the communities that make them. It functions as a seal of authenticity to highlight that a product claiming to be from a certain region is in fact from that region, is produced by people living in that region, and that it meets certain quality standards set up to ensure this.
As part of these standards, the product can be traced back to its place of origin as well, offering greater transparency. With perishables, it becomes really important to be able to know exactly where the food or ingredient is from, in the case of disease outbreaks and so on.
One of the main objectives of the GI tag is to protect and preserve traditional goods and crafts, and the communities that make them.
How many Indian foods have GI tags?
GI products seem to be gathering quite some steam in India today, with the central and state governments pushing for regional specialties to get GI tags. As of January 2024, there were 547 products with GI status, spread across agricultural, natural, manufactured goods, and handicrafts.
A few foods that received the GI status in 2022 and 2023 include the Mithila makhana (from Bihar), Tandur red gram (Telangana), Raktsey Karpo apricot (Ladakh), Alibag white onion (Maharashtra), and Mancurad mango (Goa). Of the 547 products with GI tags in India at the time of publication of this article, 253 are food and drink products, including industrial products, foods, agricultural produce, wines, and spirits (both Indian and foreign).
There are 33 foods from other parts of the world that have registered their GI status in India. These include products like Champagne, Scotch, Tequila, and certain cheeses whose production is indelibly linked to certain parts of the world and whose quality is accepted without question. For instance, Cognac from Italy, and Tequila from Mexico.
The GI tag allows these regions to protect their own products and brand equity in India, since every country has its own set of rules and regulations dictating how geographical indications are enforced. Darjeeling tea—the first product to get a GI tag in India—does something similar in other parts of the world to protect its brand.
When I first saw all this data, I was honestly pretty impressed that we had as many as we did. And then, just for kicks, I looked at the numbers in other countries.
According to the 2023 World Intellectual Property Indicators report, there were 58,400 protected GIs in existence across 91 countries and regions as of 2022 (these were just the folks that shared the data). China topped the list with a whopping 9,571 GIs, followed by the European Union with 5,176, and Switzerland with 4,728. Just a scooch over half (50.7 percent) of the registered GIs globally were for wines and spirits, and around 43.1 percent were for agricultural products and foodstuffs. Handicrafts globally accounted for only 4.2 percent.
At this point, it just became painfully obvious that we have a long way to go in terms of geographical indications, particularly when you consider how rich and diverse India’s cultural and agricultural specialities are. But then again, one wonders if the GI tags have really had the intended effect?
How do you get a GI tag?
To get a GI tag, an association of persons producing the goods needs to submit a physical application to the Geographical Indications Registry in Chennai. This registry falls under the purview of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
To be registered, foods in India need to be able to prove their regional and historical antecedents.
I looked at some GI applications for prepared food and agricultural produce to find out what this meant. In the case of agricultural produce, details were given of the exact area, the cultivar, how it’s grown, how long it had been linked to the region, and even agricultural factors that made the ingredient unique.
For prepared foods, the process of rooting the food to a particular region was less exact. The details supplied in the application covered traditional preparation techniques, the exact ingredients used, and the historical references of the food in the region. Some of the historical references traced back to ancient texts.
So to understand the actual, on-ground procedures of GI-tagging, I decided to speak to food producers with GI status about their experiences. This turned out to be harder than I had imagined, as it was difficult to access food producers working with GI tagging. However, the two conversations I did manage, with Hansel Vaz, producer of the GI-tagged Goan Feni, and S J Tejas, CEO of GiTAGGED, a start-up focusing on promoting products with GI status, offered me rich and varied perspectives on how the world of GI operates.
From their experiences, I wanted to understand just how easy it is to get a GI tag in India. Both Hansel and Tejas agreed that it is relatively easy to get a GI tag for a product as long as the necessary criteria—regional and historical grounding—are satisfied.
“If you can create a perceived difference for any product, the GI authority will approve it. They will examine it and accept it,” says Hansel. The founder of Cazulo Premium Feni based in Goa, Hansel Vaz is the secretary of the Goa Cashew Feni Distillers and Bottlers Association. Feni was the first product from Goa to get a GI tag as a heritage drink with a history dating back to the 1500s.
Having worked closely with farmer producers, S J Tejas believes that there is a need to increase awareness among producers about the merit of GI TAG. Many producers who sell unique regional goods may not realise that GI tags are a means to more steady income. Tejas says, “We go about educating the producers on GI, or work with people who may already have an understanding of it within the community.”
Producer groups applying for GI tags face numerous roadblocks. What’s getting in the way?
Tejas and his team travel across India—often to small villages and hamlets—to spend time with them to look for and understand unique products, processes, and people involved. In many of these villages, GiTAGGED has created something called a GI Panchayat, which is an association of sorts that incorporates best practices from government, corporate, panchayat, and cooperative administrative models. Tejas adds, “We also help the producers apply for the authorised user GI status.”
But the actual approval process can take time. The application, made to the Registrar of Geographical Indications in Chennai, needs to come from an association of producers that represents their interests. It can take anywhere between one and three years on average to get the tag, after which applicants become either authorised users or registered proprietors. Though some products have taken much longer—it took eight years for the Erode turmeric and Basmati rice to get their GI status. Additionally, the GI tag is only valid for 10 years, which means that producers have to renew their application to keep the status.
But even before all of this, there is a key challenge: The GI is a form of intellectual property, which makes it a legal product. Many producers may not be in a position to avail of legal services or even know how to go about doing this without help. While there exist government schemes to help producers with registration and financing, such as the one run by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development which aims to aid the registration process for producer associations, there is little awareness of this among producer communities.
The registration process is further complicated by inconsistencies in the way the GI is used. “The same product from different parts of the country can also apply,” says Hansel. This can cause a significant amount of confusion and conflict among applying states. For example, there are single GIs for products that are cultivated across multiple states, like Basmati rice, which spans seven states.
In official GI databases documenting registered GIs, Basmati rice is known to be from ‘India’, instead of a particular region within India. Given that GIs are associated with specific regions and not countries, the inaccurate documentation has led to some confusion. In addition, India shares the GI tag for Basmati with Pakistan, which has caused no small amount of contention. Disputes over intellectual claims on agricultural produce are only fair; it would be difficult and amiss for many types of cultivated products to ‘belong’ to certain regions or people. Similar disputes over handicrafts were far rarer.
However, this notion of ‘belonging’ and claims of indigeneity become murkier when one considers products such as Moira (or Myndoli) banana, said to hail from Goa. Hansel tells us that the Moira banana is named after the village of Moira in Bardez Taluka where the banana is said to have been introduced by Francisan monks, the GI status associated with the village. Today, however, cultivation of the bananas in Moira has dwindled significantly and the bulk of the crop is grown in neighbouring areas of the state. What then does the GI status of the Moira banana signify?
Disputes over intellectual claims on agricultural produce are only fair; it would be difficult and amiss for many types of cultivated products to ‘belong’ to certain regions or people.
Do producers benefit from GI tags?
One of the most popular selling points used to promote GI is that the status will give farmers and artisans the ability to get better prices for what they produce. For instance, it is the distinctly sweet taste of Marayoor jaggery, or the spice of the Appemidi mango pickle, that can help producers set their products apart from competitors and build brand equity.
GI tags offer products a badge of legitimacy, allowing these producers to value their generational skills, unique ingredients, and region-specific delicacies at higher rates. The idea is that producers will be able to better manage prices and even command a premium, not just within India, but also when exporting to other countries. The opportunity of a higher income allows much potential for growth of rural economies.
We’ve now established that the GI status offers many benefits, and is heavily supported by governments. Although the tags appear to be desirable, things are never that simple, and there are layers of complexities. In reality, there also exists very little data on how GI tags help producers commercially.
Even how GI products are priced is far from simple. For example, the price parity between GI status products and their non-tagged counterparts is higher for some products than others. But it really depends on the product.
Further, the reality is that very few Indian consumers are actually willing to pay what they perceive to be a massive premium for a certain food they know very little about when the much more affordable generic will do fine.
Hansel and Tejas have addressed this issue in very different ways.
How do producers decide on a price?
GI products are meant to be produced in limited quantities of high quality, not in mass. So, when small quantities are produced, the best way to capitalise on the skill and effort is to increase the price. “But to do that, you’ve got to create brand equity, a good brand name. And to do this premiumisation helps,” says Hansel.
And this is exactly what he has done for feni, usually seen as an inexpensive country liquor. “When I started in this industry in 2013, feni was being sold at INR 80-100, and this is after getting GI status. People would not buy at higher price points, and so no one was making money from this. And this is an issue that everyone applying for GI is going to face. It’s not easy to make more money because the market doesn’t work that way.”
As part of his reinvention process for feni, Hansel ended up killing his family brand and creating a new brand. At five times the normal price, a bottle of feni now cost INR 500. “Everyone thought I was absurd, everyone laughed at me, everyone said it was crazy, impossible.” he says. “But when I priced it at INR 500, I had everyone asking me: what is this product? What is so good about it that it has such a high price?” He had piqued people’s interest in the product.
Hansel feels that brand values and pricing are closely linked. “To justify the high price of my feni, I made sure I prioritised the core values that I wanted for the brand and this is what every GI product has to work on—consistency, quality, and staying true to your heritage. Along with this, the packaging of my product, and therefore, the visual brand of the feni, was designed to look premium and ‘international’. This allows people to recognise the product for what it is—one of a kind.”
These steps have worked in Hansel’s favour. He recently increased the price of his product to INR 750, and introduced a new nannari feni (750 ml) that sells for INR 1,000, and he has no shortage of takers. He compares this to buying champagne. People are willing to pay the high price for consistent superior quality and provenance.
Tejas feels slightly differently. “There is a misconception many people have that handmade products are very expensive. That is not necessarily true.”
He goes on to say, “Many products have become extinct because of excessively high prices that scare off consumers. To address this, we calculate the average production cost of the products based on our experiences and interactions with the artisans and producers. We share these prices with them and ultimately, a fair production cost is decided on for a regular production cycle. For our part, we also ensure that producers have sales throughout the year, giving them a steady income.”
On top of the production cost, the price the consumer sees includes GST, packaging, and shipping. Tejas said that initially, GiTAGGED was very transparent about the pricing structure, and had it displayed on the website for all to see. The company found that while producers understood the breakdowns, consumers didn’t, and would constantly question it. So, they decided to keep this structure transparent only for the producers, while to the consumers, the prices were represented as a whole.
In both cases, a lot of thought, time, and effort has gone into the strategies used and it is clear that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Every producer association will need to look at how best to come up with a pricing strategy that ensures that everyone benefits. Unfortunately, the government has not done a good job in explaining these aspects to producers, owing to which producers aren’t able to sell at higher prices and reap the benefits of their skills.
Darjeeling Tea: A GI success story for India
Darjeeling tea is considered the prima donna of teas across the world. The tea, grown in the estates of Darjeeling, has a distinct flavour owing to the rather unique combination of soil and climatic conditions. This is what makes it sought-after the world over.
Much of the Darjeeling tea produced in India is exported—around 70 per cent—primarily because the tea producers can command a premium in the global markets (and it is expensive for everyday tea drinkers in India). One of the problems of such popularity is that counterfeit products will eventually appear, and other types of tea started calling themselves Darjeeling hoping to cash in on its success.
This made it necessary to protect the reputation of Darjeeling tea as well as ensure that the tea being supplied in domestic and global markets is indeed authentic. The Tea Board started the process of setting up protections in the early 1980s, and initially incorporated a logo that could be used by licensed producers as a certification trademark. We’re skipping ahead a bit, but the long and short of it is that Darjeeling tea received its geographical indication status in 2004, making it the first GI product in the country and a brand unto itself.
This made it necessary to protect the reputation of Darjeeling tea as well as ensure that the tea being supplied in domestic and global markets is indeed authentic. These steps have helped protect the reputation and quality of Darjeeling tea.
– Today, it is mandatory for all producers of Darjeeling tea to have their goods authenticated and certified by the Tea Board.
– The Board has put in place a set of criteria that need to be followed for the tea to be certified as the real deal.
– The Tea Board also monitors and clamps down on unauthorised use of the brand, including the word and logo.
– As a further step, the board has also registered the Darjeeling word and logo in other countries and regions to protect it from misuse.
If you’re buying Darjeeling tea, to make sure it’s the genuine article, you can look at the Tea Board’s certification and licence number.
How are GI tags relevant for consumers?
While the producers’ perspectives are fundamental to understanding the complexity of how GI tags work, the consumers’ side of things reveal a far more basic reality. Despite all the fanfare in the news, most consumers don’t know what GI really entails, and this is perhaps why there is almost no information on how it has benefited authorised users.
When I asked Tejas who most needs to be made aware of the benefits of GI tags, he was clear. “First, it’s the consumer. Once consumers are aware of the product and start demanding it, producers are intelligent enough to know that this is what they need to focus on. And with the GI tag, the producers are able to get significantly better prices for the product because of the assured quality, authenticity, and traceability.”
He believes that consumers won’t understand the extent and importance of GI unless they see a whole host of these products from different sectors in one place. This was the main idea behind GiTAGGED and the store now has over 200 GI products, including around 60 food products, all under one roof.
Tejas is optimistic about growing awareness, “There are so many bodies that are trying to promote GI right now. If you watch Kaun Banega Crorepati, you will definitely see questions on GI. Educational curricula also have GI-related topics.”
In addition, the government of India is investing in initiatives, with TV programming and advertising related to GI. In December 2022, the Indian government approved INR 75 crores for the next three years to advertise and raise awareness of GI. These are especially important in India since nearly all growers and producers of GI products are based in rural areas, and may not have the marketing chops to protect, promote, and disseminate their wares.
Further, according to Tejas, for a consumer, there are no stringent measures to ensure that quality standards are being met, or to ensure that bogus products are not entering the market. There’s no nodal agency that looks at this right now. With the absence of a governing body and a universal demarcation of quality of GI status products, its claim to excellence may be compromised.
The absence of a consistent identifying symbol or sign for quality further complicates the issue of quality adherence. Given the lack of universal signage, it is easier to evade accountability, and harder to defend the legitimacy of your product!
Hansel says, “All the GIs standards are defined by producer associations, and they can keep it very loose. Technically, I can make any standards, and change those from year to year.”
The feni association (Goa Cashew Feni Distillers and Bottlers Association) that Hansel is a part of has addressed this issue by setting up its own independent body to ensure that standards are adhered to consistently by everyone across the supply chain. The association adopts this spirit of consistency by creating a set of rules that must be universally followed by feni producers with GI tags on their products.
Regarding this, Tejas had an interesting story. He shares, “When the government of India called for making a universal logo, it took nearly three years to finalise it along with the tagline. Once they came up with a tagline, there was a spelling mistake that nobody identified for another three years.” This was marketed significantly across the world and when the mistake was finally identified, the logo stopped being used. Since so many associations have already set their own logos, to shift to a new one would cause confusion all over again.
By now, you have a fair idea of the challenges of GI tagging in India, and the kind of work that needs to go into strengthening such a complex system. Despite being around for nearly two decades, GI hasn’t seen enough traction among producers or consumers. But we are slowly seeing interesting solutions surface that address the diverse needs of consumers and producers.
In December 2022, the Indian government approved INR 75 crores for the next three years to advertise and raise awareness of GI.
Ranjana Sundaresan is a professional food and drink trend-tracker, and an amateur food history enthusiast. She is fascinated by all aspects of food, from its cultural and economic influences to its social and environmental impacts.
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