Food law in Norway: Trade, food promotion, and protection of intellectual property within the food industry

Abstract

Being one of the northernmost countries in Europe, with an extensive coastline and with little opportunity for large-scale agriculture, facilitating for international trade and at the same time protecting Norwegian agriculture is of essential interest to Norway (This chapter was written in January 2015). Like in many other countries, the Norwegian customs tariffs function as effective barriers to trade, ensuring that imported products potentially threatening domestic agricultural products are not sold at lower prices than domestic products. International trade is however crucial as the Norwegian consumption presupposes extensive import of food. Instead of joining the EU, principally in order to protect agricultural and fishery resources, Norway has chosen to remain a member of the EFTA and a party to the EEA Agreement. As part of the internal market, a consequence of the EEA Agreement, many of the EU rules relating to foodstuffs are applicable, but also domestic rules with no equivalent EU legislation apply. Norway has traditionally been, and still is, one of the strictest countries in Europe when it comes to e.g. marketing towards children. Investing in product development and innovation is important to most food suppliers. Protecting intellectual property and thus competitive advantages appear to be of growing interest. Up till now the legal battles between the market players have mainly been about packaging design and unfair business practices.