Friuli Venezia Giulia Region – AQUA

AQUA is a collective and voluntary Quality Brand of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region and managed by ERSA, the regional Agency for the rural development.

The AQUA trademark: Agriculture, Quality and Environment

The Region wants to offer a communication and marketing tool its products, to agri-food companies by guaranteeing their quality and ensuring their visibility to consumers and market. The AQUA trademark, an acronym for Agriculture, Quality and Environment, characterized by a logo with an eagle on a yellow and blue background, intends to enhance fresh and processed agricultural, zootechnical, fish, forestry and pastoral products. The cost for the applying companies is remarkably lower than that of a territorial origin certification with PDO and PGI.

How the certification works

The certification is voluntary and relies on the regional law no. 21/2002, the Regulation governing the use of the Trademark (Decree DG ERSA no. 138/2012 and the Regional Council Deliberation FVG no. 1745/2012) and on the Technical Production Specifications with which the Trademark concessionaires must comply. These specifications establish the production techniques, the requirements of the final product, the identification and traceability criteria and guarantee the environmental sustainability, the product quality and the final consumer’s health.

Organizations interested in this Trademark must submit to the control of an independent third party bodies, such as CCPB, accredited on the basis of the UNI CEI EN/ISO/IEC 17065:2012 standard (General requirements relating to the bodies managing the product certification systems), for the certification of agricultural products. After getting this certification, organizations must apply to ERSA, which will grant the use of this Trademark after the examination of the requirements