Food and agricultural product pilot selection for geographical indication projects

This study assesses methodologies used during the selection of pilot products for the support to development of sustainable geographical indication projects by using the FAO/EBRD project as a case study. Relevant pilot products are essential to provide stakeholders with concrete experience, demonstrative effects and lessons learned in order to disseminate bets practices and facilitate scaling-out of sustainable GI processes. Qualitative data were transformed to quantitative data for product selection because data for local products were insufficient, and standard data were unavailable for each product. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), simple scoring and geographical indication assessment form were used together as product selection methods. Gemlik Olives, the first registered geographical indication product in the Bursa province, was included during assessment as a control group. Six local products with a potential for GI registration were considered for pilot product selection to serve as demonstrative process. Results suggest that the most important selection criteria were "reputation of the product" and "power of the organisation" and first two ranked products selected for the project were Bursa Black Figs and Bursa Peaches.