General Mills to label products containing GMOs in US.

[farmgal71]

I saw this story today, will consumer ignorance force us back to pulling weeds?


General Mills will begin labeling products nationwide that contain genetically modified ingredients — a “watershed” development, according to one consumer group.

Golden Valley-based General Mills said Friday that since it will be forced by July 1 to begin labeling for GMOs in Vermont — the result of a state law there — it will extend GMO labeling nationwide.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate failed to advance a bill that would have outlawed states from passing laws that required GMO labeling on packaged foods. The defeat was a blow to the food industry, which has opposed national and state laws requiring GMO labeling.

“We can’t label our products for only one state without significantly driving up costs for our consumers, and we simply won’t do that,” Jeff Harmening, head of General Mills’ U.S. retail operations, said in a post on a company blog Friday. “The result: Consumers all over the country will soon begin seeing words legislated by the state of Vermont on the labels of many of their favorite General Mills food products.”

Labeling for genetically modified ingredients has been a contentious topic the past few years. The food industry claims that such labels are unnecessary because GMOs were long ago approved by federal food safety regulators. A growing number of consumers have been suspect of GMOs nonetheless, and GMO-labeling proponents say they have a right to know what’s in their food.





“By any measure, today’s development is a watershed moment in the fight for more transparency,” said Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group. “I applaud General Mills. They’re going to disclose the presence of GMOs and give everyone factual information. This is terrific for consumers.”

Still, General Mills hasn’t altered its support for national legislation that would bar state labeling laws, without requiring national GMO labeling.

“Our position on GMO labeling hasn’t wavered at all,” Harmening said. “We are fully aligned with the Grocery Manufacturers Association,” a big trade group pushing against mandatory labeling in Congress. The association also has filed a federal suit arguing the Vermont law is constitutional.

Campbell Soup Co. is the only major U.S. packaged food company to break ranks with the industry by announcing in January that it supports national, mandatory GMO labeling and are ready to add GMO information to labels by the Vermont deadline.

Several states have had referendums or legislative votes to require GMO labeling, but Vermont is the only one to pass such a law and put it into effect.


“One small state’s law is setting labeling standards for consumers across the country,” the Grocery Manufacturers Association said in a statement, adding that it’s “a serious problem for businesses.”

Alexia Howard, a stock analyst at Sanford Bernstein, said other packaged food makers are likely to follow General Mills.

“The Vermont situation looks now like it is coming to fore so the companies have to do something,” she said. “They basically have a choice: They don’t participate in Vermont or they label the product nationally.”

For a food manufacturer, it makes little economic sense to label products just for Vermont, one of the smallest U.S. states with a population of 627,000, about 20 percent of the Twin Cities metro area.

And if a food company ignores the Vermont law, it could incur significant fines.


“It’s really unmanageable to exclude your product in Vermont or ship (GMO-labeled) product just to Vermont,” Harmening said in an interview with the Star Tribune. Due to production schedules, food makers must start labeling for Vermont soon. “It’s not like you can flip a switch on June 15 and have your (GMO-labeled) products on shelves July 1.”

Vermont requires that labels say an item is either produced with genetic engineering, or partially produced with genetic engineering, depending on the weight of GMO-derived ingredients. General Mills will place the GMO information near the ingredients list on food labels, in about the same-sized type.

Most corn, soybeans and beet sugar produced in the United States are grown from genetically modified seeds. Thus, supermarkets are filled with thousands of products containing ingredients that are qualified as GMO-derived.

General Mills also said Friday it has added a search tool on its website, ask.generalmills.com, to provide GMO ingredient information for hundreds of U.S. products.

So what will General Mills do if the food industry ultimately prevails in Congress with a ban on state labeling laws — or in federal court with a ruling against Vermont? Will the company then drop GMO labels? Harmening declined to speculate.


In the meantime, General Mills can bask in the approval of GMO labeling advocates. “It’s great decision for General Mills to be a leader on this,” said Heather Flesland, director of the labeling group Right to Know Minnesota

[grassfarmer]

Shocking eh? who'd of thunk that someday the farmer might be accountable for the content of the food ingredient they were growing for the human feed supply?

[Hopalong]

Not too big a surprise, one of my ancestors burned at stake, accused of witchcraft in New England.
Vermont just carrying on with tradition.

[agstar77]

Next up " This ingredient may be produced using Hydrocarbon Products".

[farmgal71]

I am more interested in what people thinks this means.

Do we need to produce more non GMO crops because the market will demand them?

If so will they pay a premium if that becomes a great percentage of the market for the extra costs?

I guess I don't like companies creating marketing spin over non GMO to prey on the confusion of the consumer.

Are people honestly afraid of GMOs or just saying they don't want them because they are well fed and have a negative perception?

[checking]

Even more shocking news. Neighbouring corn farmers feed GM corn stalks to grassfarmer"s cows. Apparently its taken years before media was alerted.

Sub line indicates that grassfarmer solves disaster by informing public that he has built a five wire fence.

[LEP]

I hope grass farmer safely removed those contaminated cattle from the food chain.

[biglentil]

The saying you are what you eat has been proven to be true. Dna strands of the food you eat actually become part of your dna. People are demanding the right to know why are we so scared? Only the big biotechs should be scared, they are not our friends guys.

[grassfarmer]

Do we need to produce more non GMO crops because the market will demand them?

Probably.

Even more shocking news. Neighbouring corn farmers feed GM corn stalks to grassfarmer"s cows. Apparently its taken years before media was alerted.

Sub line indicates that grassfarmer solves disaster by informing public that he has built a five wire fence.

The irony being that cows are increasingly refusing to eat stalks of GM corn in the grazing situation. Maybe they are smarter than a lot of farmers?

The saying you are what you eat has been proven to be true. Dna strands of the food you eat actually become part of your dna. People are demanding the right to know why are we so scared? Only the big biotechs should be scared, they are not our friends guys.

Absolutely biglentil, I have never understood the farmers on here that bitch about the ridiculous price of GM canola seed especially when they say it has no better yield or profitability than older varieties then will blindly defend the use of the technology attacking their fellow farmers who decide to grow organic crops and attacking the consumers for wanting to buy non-GMO. Must be Stockholm syndrome.

[sumdumguy]

Corn and Canola are found in many product, all GMO. This could create a huge niche market.

[stonepicker]

I call bullshit to the DNA thing. I think i'll start selling aluminum foil, huge market out there!

[ajl]

More BS out there on the subject of food and nutrition than on global warming. I don't think that labeling GMO's will have much impact. The big problem is that all 'organic' shoppers receive their income from government sources. When the government is forced to layoff staff., the organic industry will shrink as people will become more value conscious and realize that foods containing GMO's are proven to be just fine if not better than so called 'organic'.

[rockpile]

Labels don't matter, after all, who but a very few read ingredient lists when grocery shopping. I used to be suspicious when gmo's first appeared but until a conclusive reliable scientific study comes out and proves a health risk, I'm not going to worry about it. What I laugh at is some of these young anti everything will then go out to a high end sushi bar, sip herbal tea and eat raw fish. Gross!!!

[farming101]

Be ready to make major changes in your diet if you don't want any gm ingredients.

[MBgrower]

I think we better be ready to be accountable and document everything with respect to producing and storing our production. The horse is out of the barn, cant stop it now.