“If they see a cheese sitting on a shelf that says ‘white cheese in brine’ they’ve got no idea what that actually means because they’ve got recipe books at home that refers to it as feta.”

Trade Minister Don Farrell said the EU’s geographical indicators had “the potential to be a difficult issue”.

“We’ll have to make some tough decisions at a certain point on those issues,” he said.

“If they play hardball on it,well then it’s going to create some difficulties,but I’m hopeful that with a bit of goodwill on both sides we can resolve those sorts of issues. I don’t think ultimately that will be the stumbling block.”

But Keijzer said protecting the names of certain European regional products would be key to the free-trade agreement.

“We’ve always made it clear to the Australian side that if there’s going to be an agreement that would have to be part of it,and that was agreed,” he said.

Emerald Hill Deli owner Maria Totos said 90 per cent of the feta she sold at her South Melbourne Market store was from Greece because she believed the climate produced a superior product.

“I appreciate the quality of the product,and for that I understand why they would need to protect it,” she said.

However,she questioned whether governments were becoming too hung up on product names.

“We have bigger problems than feta,” Totos said. “The ones who know it as they know it won’t call it anything else. But moving forward people[might] have to learn.”

The EU has asked Australia to protect 234 alcoholic spirit names and 166 agricultural and other food names.

That list of geographical indicators is not final and the government is considering whether it will propose a list of Australian geographical indicators as part of the deal,according to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website. A decision is not expected until late in the negotiations.

“The government has made clear it will not agree to protect specific GIs unless the overall deal is good enough,including the EU delivering new,commercially significant market access for our exporters,” the department said.

While Australia is hoping to reach a final agreement early next year,New Zealand finalised its own free-trade agreement with the EU this week. As part of the deal,it agreed to protect nearly 2200 EU geographic indicators.

There are plenty of names the EU is OK with Australian producers using:Italian-style deli meats can still be called prosciutto and mortadella,as long as they aren’t called mortadella Bologna or prosciutto di Parma. Australian cheese makers can also continue to produce edam and gouda if they don’t claim it’s from Holland.

Keijzer said geographical indicators could be a good thing for Australia.

“The opposition is from very large,multinational companies that would like to make all sorts of products and decide where the production is. So that goes a bit against our philosophy,” he said.

With Jackson Graham

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weeklyInside Politics newsletter here.