Agricultural products and foodstuffs in Slovenia are protected under four quality protection schemes; a national one, which only applies in Slovenia, and three EU schemes, which apply across the bloc.
The EU quality schemes are protected designation of origin (PDO), protected geographical indication (PGI), and traditional specialities guaranteed (TSG).
The national scheme guarantees that the product is of a higher quality, while there are also indications of organic and integrated production.
Once the product obtains such protection, compliance with the prescribed requirements is checked independently every year and the producer is issued a certificate.
The authority in charge in Slovenia, the Food Safety, Veterinary Sector and Plant Protection Administration (Uprava RS za varno hrano, veterinarstvo in varstvo rastlin), has conducted 721 inspections since 2013, finding 117 violations.
These include incorrect use of logos, misleading labelling, an invalid certificate, non-compliance in online sale and the sale of organic products by uncertified operations.
Of the 14 products checked for their PDO labels last year, six were not compliant. The year before violations were established in two of the 25 cases, and so far this year in four of the 16 cases.
In the case of PGI, violations were established in seven out of 37 cases last year and in five out of 12 the year before. By the end of July this year, non-compliance was found in one of the four cases inspected.
Only one inspection for compliance of TSG certified products was conducted last year and four the year before ans none so far this year. Violation has been found in one case.
The administration has also found one case of non-compliance with the national scheme and quite a few cases of non-compliance of organic products (24 out of 100 cases in 2017).
