General Mills will join Campbell Soup in alerting consumers when its products contain GMOs, but the companies are on opposite sides of the GMO-labeling issue.
On Jan. 7, Campbell became the first major food company to support mandatory nationwide labeling of GMO food. It said it was prepared to label all of its U.S. products, not just those destined for Vermont, whose first-in-the-nation label law takes effect July 1. General Mills, “disappointed that a national solution has still not been reached,” says it will label its products to avoid “significant fines” under the Vermont law. In its announcement, General Mills called for pre-emption of state labeling laws.
“We can’t label our products for only one state without significantly driving up costs for our consumers and we simply aren’t going to do that. The result: consumers all over the United States will soon begin seeing words legislated by the state of Vermont on the labels of many of their favorite General Mills products,” wrote Jeff Harmening, chief operating officer for U.S. Retail at General Mills, which is based in Minneapolis. “With the Vermont labeling legislation upon us, and with the distinct possibility that other states will enact different labeling requirements, what we need is simple: We need a national solution.”
The Grocery Manufacturers Association said General Mills remained part of a coalition of farm groups and food processors who want the federal government to override state and local regulation of GMO foods. The industry wants GMO labeling to remain voluntary at the national level. It says foodmakers face billions of dollars in additional costs to segregate ingredients, change labels and revise distribution channels to comply with a potential thicket of conflicting state laws. “Vermont’s looming labeling mandate is a serious problem for businesses,” said GMA. “This announcement [by General Mills] should give new urgency to the need for action on a national law when the Senate returns from its recess in April.”
The consumer group Food and Water Watch said General Mills’ decision was proof that companies can comply with the Vermont law. It said the decision also indicated that the cost of compliance was tolerable. “Campbell Soup Co. also recently announced it will label GMOs on products nationwide without raising consumer prices,” it said. “Nothing short of mandatory on-package labeling will do when it comes to providing consumers with information about GMOs in their food.”
The Senate rejected a pre-emption bill on a 48-49 vote last week, with 60 votes needed for the bill to advance. All but three Democratic senators voted against the bill and Republicans generally supported it. The bill, by Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts, also proposed a voluntary labeling system that could later become mandatory if too few companies participated. The voluntary system mirrored the food industry’s SmartLabel initiative that uses websites, toll-free telephone lines and QR codes, scannable by smartphones, to disclose ingredients including GMOs.
Roberts angrily accused opponents of voting against farmers and ranchers. The House Agriculture chairman, Michael Conaway of Texas, said the roadblock to resolution of the issue was “an uncompromising and inflexible group of minority-party senators.” GMO labels would stigmatize agricultural biotechnology, said Conaway.