(DG JRC/IPTS) - agrilife - Europa

1. Introduction
The following document contains the results of Task 1 of the study “Food Supply Chain
Dynamics and Quality Certification”. Said task features a bibliographic review
regarding six EU member countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, Latvia, United Kingdom
and the Netherlands) in reference to quality assurance and labelling schemes within the
agro food sector.
The report consists of two sections. The first section features a list of relevant
documents identified for each analysed country regarding the subjects of concern.
Within said section the documents are listed by typology (i.e. scientific literature,
miscellaneous relevant literature, relevant websites), and by country of reference. The
contents and the criteria adopted for the research of each typology of documents are
described at the beginning of the related chapters.
The second section of the report contains the results of the analysis of the quality
assurance and labelling schemes within the agro food sector currently in use in the
aforementioned countries and deemed to be relevant to the study.
For each country, a list of all the relevant schemes is provided, as well as a number of
profiles compiled for the schemes deemed of particular interest, on the grounds of the
information gathered.
In said profiles, most space is devoted to schemes and protocols applicable to
agricultural production. Also regularly featured for each country are:
- Profiles of the internationally relevant and most frequently adopted schemes.
- A profile describing a scheme promoted by a large scale retailer.
Regarding the typology of schemes considered for the study, all the schemes are
included that can be applied to the agro food sector, regardless of supply chain level, but
with special attention paid to the schemes that can be applied to agricultural production
and aimed at product differentiation.
The analysis does not include:
- All the schemes regarding organic products.
- All the schemes regulated at EU level (PDO, PGI, EMAS, etc).
- All the schemes in connection with EU regulations.
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