Costa Rican bananas have won geographical indication status with their national government. “This is not an isolated step,” said Jorge Sauma, ceo of national banana corporation Corbana. “We have been working on this for three years with officials from the national registry and the Universidad Nacional looking at all aspects of banana production in Costa Rica in detail: its history, the production process itself and all our efforts in the arena of the environment and labour.”
Now that the geographical indication has been registered nationally Sauma has his sights set on the EU. “Now we will work on the proceedings with the EU registry for protected geographical indicator status,” he said. “This is facilitated by the association agreement signed between Costa Rica and the EU last year.” This administrative process is expected to take some six months to complete.
