March 20, 2025

El Centre de Recerca en Economia i Desenvolupament Agroalimentari (CREDA) is one of the partner entities of the European GI SMART project, an initiative that aims to explore new ways to facilitate the implementation of the Geographical Indications (GI) certification system to support sustainable agriculture, food and food systems. Within the project, CREDA has the role of developing a methodology and validating a set of key indicators that influence consumers’ food choices and their preference for GI-certified agri-food producers.

Mahdieh Khezrinejadgharaei and Smita Dash Baishakhy, PhD students at the centre and colleagues involved in the project, explain the process CREDA is following:

What is CREDA’s current status in the project?

CREDA is currently working on WP2, WP5 and WP6.

Both WP2 and WP6 relate to the production of all GI products in Europe, which number over 3.000. More specifically, within these tasks, during 2025, the Catalan team will carry out the verification, extraction, and evaluation of the best indicators related to the sustainability impacts of all products in the three dimensions: (1) economic; (2) social; and (3) environmental. This research aims to develop a multi-stakeholder self-assessment method that is reproducible with both quantitative and qualitative information.

Regarding WP5, which is based on the design and implementation of pilot consumer choice experiments, CREDA will begin conducting surveys to understand consumers’ engagement, awareness, and understanding of GI agri-food products that promote more sustainable and healthier food systems and diets. The surveys will be conducted online with consumers in seven European countries: France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom, using representative samples from market research panels.

Once these tasks are completed, the CREDA team will develop a strategic guide that can improve the commercialization of GIs.