The Rt Hon George Eustice will be attending the Show on Friday, appearing at the Why Farming Matters in Kent Area at 10.45am. Mr Eustice is currently a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for farming, food and the marine environment in DEFRA.
It is expected that at his visit he will call upon Kent to create more Protected Food Names. At the moment Kent currently has three: Whitstable Oysters, East Kent Goldings and Kentish Ale. Protected Food Names (PFNs) allow producers to safeguard their products on either a geographical or tradition recipe basis. This allows for products like Cornish Pasties to only be produced from Cornwall. Such safeguarding can be crucial for small food producers who make and sell some of the country’s best-loved and most traditional products.
DEFRA believes that the status accorded to foods under the scheme will help with export potential and allow foreign importers to get an interest in regional British food. The Scottish government page on PFNs claims that products with the status are sold at 2.3 times the price of products without the status.