Beware of the use of the word "champagne" at all costs. Customs officers in Le Havre participated Wednesday in the destruction of more than 34,000 bottles of soda whose name counterfeited the protected designation of origin (PDO) Champagne, seized at the port of Le Havre, customs said in a statement.
These 34,499 bottles "containing a bright orange liquid", from Haiti and intended for sale on the French market, had been placed in customs detention in October 2021 because of their label "Couronne Fruit Champagne", explains the press release.
In October 2022, "the Paris Judicial Court ruled that the placing on the market of these bottles was likely to undermine the protected designation of origin Champagne and ordered the destruction of the entire stock," continue the customs.
A fraud investigation
They specify that before this case, "this drink had been the subject of an investigation by the services of the DGCCRF (Directorate of Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control)" leading "to the recall of the product due to the excessive amount of benzoic acid".
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The Union of Manufacturers (Unifab), which brings together more than 200 companies and defends intellectual property rights, welcomed this destruction.
"An appellation of origin offers the guarantee of compliance with rigorous specifications and is, by essence, non-relocatable," Unifab said in a statement.
At the beginning of February, a shipment of 2,352 cans of American beer bearing the inscription "The Champagne of Beers", was intercepted in the Belgian port of Antwerp, then destroyed.
