Traditional and Regional Foods from the Slovak Consumer's View

Nowadays consumers are more educated and more demanding about the quality and origin of food than in the past. This forces manufacturers to register their products, whether at national or European level, thus guaranteeing the origin of the product. The aim of this paper is to identify the Slovak traditional and regional foods that are marked as "Protected Designation of Origin", "Protected Geographical Indication", and "Traditional Speciality Guaranteed", and analyse consumer knowledge about these labels and their shopping behaviour. The data were obtained by using an online questionnaire and structured interview technique. The study involved 120 respondents. Slovak consumers are most familiar with "Traditional Specialties Guaranteed" label and the main reason for shopping the traditional and regional foods with PGI, PDO, TSG labels is the guarantee of the product origin.