The market size for GI food products – evidence from the empirical economic literature

In order to understand the global importance of foods with Geographical Indications (GIs), it is essential to get an overview the market size for such products. In spite of the relative importance of GI policy in EU trade agreements, there are only limited data available on the actual market size for GI labelled products. Against this background this paper collects all available data that provides estimates of the market size for GI foods, analysing the available datasets and reports of the Commission and conducting a systematic literature review on the academic papers related to this topic. Based on results we can underline the high level of concentration of GI products in terms of origin and product category. The most GI market is the domestic market of the European Union even though the share of GI production is only a minor part total agri-food output. On the other hand, GI products with both significant market size (domestic and export) and remarkable share also exist, but these are a small set of all registered GI products and are concentrated in only a few countries.