UK protected food and drink names: PDO, PGI, TSG and the two registers

The short answer

PDO, PGI and TSG are the three labels of the UK's protected food names scheme, which Defra runs. A PDO product must be produced, processed and prepared in its named area; a PGI needs at least one important stage of production, processing or preparation there; a TSG protects a traditional name, recipe or method and does not need to be made in any particular place. Defra's examples are Cornish clotted cream and Orkney beef for PDO, Welsh lamb and Armagh Bramley apples for PGI, and traditionally farmed Gloucestershire Old Spots pork for TSG.[2]

Since the end of 2020 there are two systems, and which one applies depends on where a product is sold. Defra's guidance says the UK schemes protect registered names sold in Great Britain, meaning England, Scotland and Wales, and the EU schemes protect names sold in Northern Ireland and the EU. Names that were protected in the EU on 31 December 2020 are protected under both. So there is no single UK-wide register: the official registers for Great Britain are Defra's, published on GOV.UK, while names sold in Northern Ireland are protected under the EU's schemes.[4][1]

What a GI protects, and what it does not

Defra describes a geographical indication as intellectual property that protects a product name from misuse or imitation and guarantees the product's characteristics or reputation, authenticity and origin.[1] It is not a brand. Nobody owns a GI: any producer can make and sell a product under the registered name if it follows the product's specification and is verified to do so, and Defra sets this against a trade mark, which belongs to the business that registered it.[1]

That makes the specification, not the label, the useful document. The register entries link to them, and the specification is where the actual rules live: which area, which ingredients, which method. Defra can also remove a name if the product does not comply with its specification or has not been produced for seven years or more.[1]

The labels themselves follow the same split. Defra's logo rules say a food name from Great Britain registered before 1 January 2021 had to carry the UK logo when sold in Great Britain from 1 January 2024, could carry it in Northern Ireland, and could also carry the EU logo if the name is registered under the EU scheme; a food name from Northern Ireland must carry the EU logo when sold in Northern Ireland or the EU. For wine and spirit drinks the UK logo is optional.[3] XTOUR's reading: a whisky bottle without a GI logo says nothing about whether its name is protected.

Who runs it

Defra is the competent authority for the GI schemes across the UK, including Northern Ireland, and manages them with the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA). There are six UK registers: PDO and PGI foods; TSG foods; spirit drinks; wines; aromatised wines; and traditional terms for wine. Defra's guidance adds that the UK protects certain American wine and spirit names under an agreement with the United States without treating them as GIs, among them Bourbon Whiskey and Tennessee Whiskey.[1]

Each entry shows the date the name was first registered with the EU. Defra says that date is given for information only and is not part of the official UK register; the carried-over entries cited here, such as Cornish Pasty, show a UK registration date of 31 December 2020.[5][1]

Six registered names, read

On 11 October 2026 Defra's finder listed 5,498 names across all its registers and statuses, and 100 registered names with the United Kingdom as country of origin: 80 PDO or PGI foods, four TSGs, eight spirit drinks, six wines and two traditional terms for wine.[4] What follows is what the specifications for five of those names, and Defra's decision notice for a sixth, actually say, which is often more specific than the name suggests.

Cornish Pasty (PGI, first registered with the EU in 2011). The specification describes a D-shaped pasty filled with beef, potato, swede and onion, crimped along one side, and sets minimums: vegetables at least 25% of the whole pasty and beef at least 12.5%, with the filling uncooked when the pasty is sealed.[5] No meat other than beef and no vegetables beyond those listed may go into the filling, though small amounts of other ingredients for succulence, flavour or processing are allowed up to 5% of the uncooked filling by weight; it also notes that in Cornwall swede is called "turnip". The area is the administrative area of Cornwall, and each producer's certification number from the Cornish Pasty Association is to be shown on packaging and at the point of sale.[6]

Stilton (two PDO entries: Stilton Blue Cheese and Stilton White Cheese). Defra's register lists blue and white Stilton as separate PDO names.[8][7] The specification restricts the cheese to pasteurised cow's milk and the area to the counties of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. It explains the name as a place of sale, not of making: the cheese became known as Stilton because it was first sold to the public at the Bell Inn in the village of Stilton, a coaching stop between London and York. It allows milk from surrounding counties in times of shortage, and its own lists differ: Cambridgeshire appears in the lists for White Stilton and for Mature or Vintage Blue Stilton but not in the list for Blue Stilton.[9]

Melton Mowbray Pork Pie (PGI, 2009). The filling is uncured pork, which the specification says is grey, "the colour of roast pork", and meat must be at least 30% of the whole pie. The area is far wider than the town: a region bounded by the A52, A1, M1, A45 and A605 that includes Nottingham, Grantham, Stamford and Northampton, which the specification itself calls larger than the original area of production.[11] In March 2025 the Secretary of State rejected the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association's application to shrink that area, saying the change would exclude certain producers and that the association had not shown the pie's qualities are now exclusive to a smaller area.[10][12]

Arbroath Smokies (PGI, 2004). The area is a coastal corridor reaching inland 8 kilometres from Arbroath Town House, from West Mains in the north to East Haven in the south. The specification stresses the method: the fish are hot smoked, unlike cold-smoked fish that need further cooking, and it traces the tradition to the fishing village of Auchmithie.[13][14]

Cornish Clotted Cream (PDO, 1998). The area is the county of Cornwall, the specification says only milk produced in Cornwall is used, and the cream must have at least 55% butterfat before it is scalded.[15][16]

English Whisky (spirit drink GI, 2026). The newest name on this list. Defra's decision notice approves it for whisky "made from UK cereal grain and English water, distilled in England", and the register entry dates the registration 1 October 2026.[18] The application was not uncontested: Defra received seven notices of opposition, three of them inadmissible, and the main dispute was over requiring copper stills for malt whisky; the specification was changed to require sufficient copper contact in the vapour path, but the applicant and most objectors still did not agree. The notice set an appeal deadline of 8 October 2026; XTOUR has not checked whether an appeal was made.[19]

Whisky names on the register

Three national whisky names sit on the spirit drinks register with the United Kingdom as country of origin. Scotch Whisky's entry carries an original EU registration date of 12 June 1989.[17] Single Malt Welsh Whisky was registered under the UK scheme on 24 July 2023, after an application in 2021.[20] English Whisky followed on 1 October 2026.[18] A fourth, Irish Whiskey, gives its country of origin as "United Kingdom and Ireland".[21] What the law requires of Scotch is a separate subject, covered in Scotch whisky: what the law protects.

Where official pages do not line up

The register's "country of origin" field does not follow the UK's borders. Jersey Royal Potatoes and Isle of Man Queenies are both registered PDOs whose entries give the country of origin as the United Kingdom.[23][22] The Ministry of Justice says the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are not part of the UK, and Defra's own application guidance treats applicants from those islands as applicants from outside the UK.[2][24] XTOUR reports both and resolves neither; it reads the register field as an administrative label, not a statement of where a product comes from.

Two smaller points sit inside the documents themselves. The Stilton specification's shortage-county lists differ by variety, as described above.[9] And register entries show EU registration dates that Defra says are not part of the official UK record.[1]

What XTOUR does not know

XTOUR has not read every specification on the register, only the five above plus Defra's English Whisky decision notice, and does not list the other 94 UK-origin names' rules. It does not know which shops, bakers or dairies are verified producers; Defra's register does not say, and XTOUR has not opened the producer associations' sites. It has not read the EU's own register, which governs names sold in Northern Ireland, so it does not state which UK names also hold EU protection today beyond what Defra's guidance says about names protected on 31 December 2020. Prices, availability and where to buy are outside this page.