EN Official Journal of the European Union C 302/11

Publication of an application in accordance with Article 6(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 510/2006 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs

2010/C 302/11

This publication confers the right to object to the application pursuant to Article 7 of Council Regulation (EC) No 510/2006 (1). Statements of objection must reach the Commission within six months of the date of this publication.

SUMMARY

COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 510/2006

‘MOULES DE BOUCHOT DE LA BAIE DU MONT-SAINT-MICHEL’

EC No: FR-PDO-0005-0547-30.03.2006

PDO ( X ) PGI ( )

This summary sets out the main elements of the product specification for information purposes.

1. Responsible department in the Member State:

Name: Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité Address: 51 rue d’Anjou 75008 Paris FRANCE Tel. +33 0153898000 Fax +33 0153898060 E-mail: info@inao.gouv.fr

2. Group:

Name: Comité de défense des «Moules de bouchot de la Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel» Address: Maison de la baie 35960 Le-Vivier-sur-Mer FRANCE Tel. +33 0299488615 Fax +33 0299488615 E-mail: — Composition: Producers/processors ( X ) Other ( )

3. Type of product:

Class 1.7. Fresh fish, molluscs and crustaceans and products derived therefrom

4. Specification:

(summary of requirements under Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 510/2006)

4.1. Name:

‘Moules de Bouchot de la Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel’

4.2. Description:

Live farmed mussels primarily from the species Mytilus edulis (less than 5 % are Mytilus galloprovincialis mussels or galloprovincialis-edulis hybrids), characterised by a smooth, dark shell regular in shape, and yellow to orange flesh free from crabs and grains of sand. The texture of the flesh is oily and tender and the predominant flavour is sweet.

They have an average length greater than or equal to 4 cm, carbohydrate content greater than 4 % of the cooked flesh, and a minimum flesh rate of 120 on the Lawrence and Scott index. The species, average length and minimum flesh rate of the batches of mussels ready to be marketed are measured and checked in accordance with the methods specified in part 5 on the production method.

4.3. Geographical area:

The geographical production area of the mussels comprises a breeding area, which extends from the part of the foreshore of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel located to the south of the line between the church tower of Carolles and the peak of the mountain range up to the west of the boundary between the departments Ille et Vilaine/Manche, and a packaging and processing area, which covers the districts of Cancale, Cherrueix, Le Vivier-sur-Mer, Mont-Dol, Hirel, Saint-Benoît-des-Ondes, and Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes.

The area of mussel beds and reserves comprises:

— the parts of the maritime domain where there are bodies of water characteristic of the general system of biological production of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel and, in particular, bodies of water with a low travel speed,

— a vast foreshore comprising sediments made up of fine sands with Macoma balthica or fine sands able to support low levels of life.

It provides the mussels with the conditions for finding abundant, specific and varied food linked to:

— the presence of a vast foreshore,

— the covering of fine sands on which specific benthic stocks develop,

— the interactions between the current from the largest tidal range in France and the flow of rivers that discharge into the bay,

— the transfer and interactions between various ecosystems including polders, mud flats and marine marshes.

The processing and packaging area corresponds to the mussel farming customs, records of which go back as far as the 1950s, near the traditional land and sea access routes to the mussel farms on the lower foreshore.

4.4. Proof of origin:

Any operator carrying out its activity under the production conditions of ‘Moules de bouchot de la baie du Mont-Saint-Michel’ must undertake to adhere to the product specification by signing an identification statement. This statement allows all operators involved in the production, washing, grading and packaging processes to be listed.

Different registers are required, one for registering the farming and cleaning practices, another for monitoring the quantities of mussels stored in reserves or in basins, another for monitoring the quantities of mussels processed during washing-sieving and lastly, one for monitoring the quantities packaged.

In order to guarantee traceability, mussels assigned to the protected designation of origin ‘Moules de bouchot de la baie du Mont Saint-Michel’ are physically separated from other mussels and during the different production stages: growing, washing and sieving, and packaging.

All packaging is identified by a system of marking indicating the weight, the name of the producer and the references of the dispatch centre, the packaging date and the order number of the packaging.

The procedure is completed by an analytical test and taste test to verify the typical character and quality of the mussels.

4.5. Method of production:

The mussels are farmed mussels, bred on vertical stakes aligned and dug into the ground of the foreshore.

The mussel beds are fertilised using strings of spat at the latest by 31 October each year complying with a specified maximum mussel bed fertilisation rate.

The mussels are farmed inside the breeding area in mussel bed concessions each comprising lines of vertical stakes whose distribution and density are defined for the designation.

Mussel farming takes place over a period of at least 11 consecutive months including at least 8 months on the mussel bed from the fertilisation of the mussel beds and may not exceed a breeding period of 24 months.

The harvest period for mussels is between 15 June and 15 February of the year following the fertilisation of the mussel beds and between 15 June and 31 July for mussels bred for a minimum period of 18 months. After harvesting, the mussels can be stored in a reserve or immersed using a closed receptacle with an opening, in insubmersible basins into which seawater is fed and which are located in the cleaning and dispatch centres.

After being put into reserves or basins, the mussels are separated, washed and sorted in dispatch centres located in the defined processing and packaging area.

The batches of mussels ready for packaging or selected for analytical testing must contain at least 5 % of Mytilus galloprovincialis mussels or galloprovincialis-edulis hybrid mussels, and less than 20 % of mussels whose length is less than 4 cm.

The method for calculating the minimum flesh rate is set out in the product specification. In the event of exceptional climatic or biological circumstances for a given harvest, a national stipulation can reduce the flesh rate of the mussels by up to 5 % of the rate specified in part 4.2 of the description of the product.

Packaging is carried out inside the defined processing and packaging area, on mussels from the same dispatch centre. It must be done within 18 hours after the washing and sieving of the mussels.

The mussels are dispatched and marketed in packaging with a maximum capacity of 15 kg. Final packaging may use bags of 2 to 15 kg or packs of 0,5 to 7 kg.

4.6. Link with the geographical area:

Specificity of the geographical area

The municipalities covered by the designation of origin ‘Moules de bouchots de la baie du Mont-Saint-Michel’ are located on the coast of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel in the crook of the Norman-Breton Gulf.

The Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, characterised by its vast foreshore with a very slight slope and by the largest tidal ranges of any French coast, presents a mosaic of ecosystems (polders, saltwater marshes, mud flats, estuaries …) characterised by the interaction between land and sea environments and the transition between land and sea.

The bodies of water that cover this great expanse of shallow water become much warmer from spring and present considerable turbidity due to the presence of fine or fine to medium sands. Once they enter the bay, they move, besides the oscillations due to the range of tides and the wind, very slowly.

The Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel has the further specificity of not having significant endemic mytilidae. Mytilus galloprovincialis has only a marginal presence and Mytilus edulis is not able to reproduce.

It is these exceptional natural conditions that led a number of professionals from the region to introduce mussel bed farming at the end of the 1950s. These producers, aware of the risks that overproduction poses to the area's environment and to the product, supported strict regulation of mussel beds. Lastly, the mussel farmers put in place a procedure for opening and closing the harvest in light of analytical and organoleptic tests in order to avoid premature harvests when the mussels have not yet reached a sufficient size.

Specificities of the product

The mussel of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel is a mussel from the species mytilus edulis bred on mussel beds and clearly distinguished from mussels from the same species and the same farming method from other basins, primarily by the very full shell, the high carbohydrate content, the yellow to orange flesh, its tender and oily texture and its predominantly sweet taste.

Due to their characteristics, the farmed mussels of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel are a market benchmark, especially through their sales price, which is higher than that of products from other production centres.

Causal link between the geographical area and the quality or characteristics of the product

In the 1950s, mussel farmers from the Bay of Aiguillon in search of new sites for mussel bed farming found in the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel particularly favourable conditions due to the very slight and regular slope of its foreshore and the traditional land and sea access routes.

The bathymetric conditions allow mussels to benefit considerably from the advantages of farming on mussel beds. They also result in the thermal characteristics and turbidity of the bodies of water that favour an abundance of nutritional resources — no additional food is provided for the mussels. Moreover, the very long residence times of the bodies of water at the bottom of the bay allows successive generations of phytoplankton to stay in contact over a sustained period with the mussels and thereby provide them with an abundance of nutrition.

Other abundant nutritional resources come from the different ecosystems of the bay and contribute to the very well-filled shells and to the specific organoleptic characteristics of the mussels of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel. Among these different resources, the micro-algae present on the surface of the mud flats of the foreshore play an important role — it has been observed that 96 % of siliceous skeletons found in the stomach contents of mussels in the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel belong to four species of diatoms that colonise these sediments.

Furthermore, the characteristics of the bodies of water, by preventing the presence of Mytilus galloprovincialis and the reproduction of Mytilus edulis, protect mussels in the bay from any spatial and nutritional competition and allow them to develop rapidly.

Lastly, thanks to the different measures taken by professionals to control the resource and preserve the environment, this resource can be used by the farmed mussels of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel.

Thus, the geographical environment of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel allows, by virtue of its natural components, judiciously exploited by professionals since production began, to confer special characteristics on the mussels of the species Mytilus edulis bred on mussel beds.

4.7. Inspection body:

Name: Institut national de l’origine et de la qualité (I.N.A.O.) Address: 51 rue d’Anjou 75008 Paris FRANCE Tel. +33 0153898000 Fax +33 0142255797 E-mail: info@inao.gouv.fr

Name: Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes (D.G.C.C.R.F.) Address: 59 Bd V. Auriol 75703 Paris Cedex 13 FRANCE Tel. +33 0144871717 Fax +33 0144973037 E-mail: —

4.8. Labelling:

The labelling of mussels covered by the designation ‘Moules de bouchot de la baie du Mont-Saint-Michel’ requires each packaging unit to bear: the name of the protected designation of origin ‘Moules de bouchot de la baie du Mont-Saint-Michel’, written in characters at least as large as the largest characters that appear on the labelling, and the words ‘protected designation of origin’, and the Community DPO logo immediately before or after the name of the designation, without any intervening words.

(1) OJ L 93, 31.3.2006, p. 12.