Posted
17th June 2001
Last Resort - Coverup
New
Zealanders know that much of what we do originates on the calculators
of overseas accountants. The future of organics is not going
to be any exception. Hence the importance of the coverup of
organic food labels in Canada.
Loblaws
Canada's largest grocery retailer, has ordered its suppliers
to remove or cover by Sept. 1 any labels that identify food
as being free of genetically modified ingredients. The move
has angered many of the organic food processors that market
their breakfast cereals, pastas and other products in the store's
health food department as being free of chemical additives and
genetically modified material.
Nature's Path Foods Inc., a British-Columbia-based company that
produces organic breakfast cereals, said some Canadian grocery
chains pressed the company to alter the labels on its products
destined for their shelves. The part of the label that says
the products are made without genetically modified organisms
has been blacked out with a felt pen. Spokesman Arran Stephens
said some large grocery chains warned the company that its products
would be yanked from shelves if it didn't remove the reference
to genetically modified organisms. "We've sort of been bullied
into this. We feel it's very important that consumers know if
their food has been genetically tampered," Mr. Stephens said,
but the company didn't want to risk cutting production and laying
off employees. Mr. Stephens noted that independent food stores
and grocery chains in the United States welcome the GMO-free
labels. "They're pretty disappointed that we decided to bow
to pressure."
Many suppliers are afraid to criticize the giant grocery chain
publicly because they fear losing shelf space. But they say
privately that they are facing major expense to change labels
and could lose sales because consumers won't be able to tell
if they are getting GMO-free foods. In a memo sent to suppliers
in late January, Jamie Cooney, director of procurement of health
food for Loblaws, said the products of distributors who didn't
remove the non-GMO labels could be removed from the grocery
chain's shelves. "It is our position that until such time as
a government and-or industry-supported definition of genetic
modification exists in Canada we will not support product packaging
containing non-GMO claims," the letter, dated Jan. 29, said.
In some Loblaws stores across the country the non-GMO stickers
have been blacked out or covered by other stickers. Nadege Adam,
health protection director for the Council of Canadians, said
she was not aware of other grocery chains taking this position.
"There is absolutely no reason for them [Loblaws] to do this,"
Ms. Adam said in an interview. "There are no laws preventing
anybody from putting a GMO-free claim as long as they can prove
it's GMO-free. Loblaws is preventing people from doing this.
They are not the government; they have no right to do this."
The federal government has yet to establish a standard or a
labelling policy for genetically modified foods, those that
come from plants altered to resist pests or herbicides or to
produce greater yields. Ottawa suffered a setback Tuesday in
one of its attempts to control labelling of GMO foods when a
Quebec judge quashed its bid for an injunction that would stop
a beer maker from labelling and advertising its product as "certified
GMO-free" by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. While the
agency regulates genetically modified crops, it doesn't label
or test consumer products for the presence of GMOs. Unibroue
Inc. has said that a manufacturer's certificate signed by a
government food inspector proved that the CFIA says its product
is GMO-free. The head of the Canadian Health Food Association
said Tuesday that the Loblaws policy leaves consumers in the
dark about whether they are eating foods containing genetically
modified ingredients. Donna Herringer said the association has
been lobbying the federal government for two years to come up
with mandatory labelling of foods that contain genetically modified
ingredients.
Instead, Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief asked a committee
to come up with recommendations for voluntary labelling of foods
that contain genetically modified ingredients. Ms. Herringer
said that approach will not work because food distributors and
retailers won't voluntarily label their products as containing
genetically modified material. "So Canadian consumers continue
to be in the dark," Ms. Herringer said in an interview from
Vancouver..
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