Food lobby slams GMO rules

Date: 01/05/1997

By Michael Mann

A COALITION of leading food companies has attacked the European Commission's 'piecemeal and confusing' approach to the labelling of foods containing genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

Launching a major EU-wide lobbying effort, the companies claimed that the Commission's disjointed policies would add to their costs, confuse consumers and could render labels virtually meaningless.

Their concerns stem principally from the fact that the two major products they use - GM soya and maize - were licensed before new labelling requirements were brought into force, and that there is no legal requirement to label derivatives of these raw materials.

“No one seems to realise we do not buy raw materials, but derivatives. The Union should be regulating food ingredients. For us, the situation is quite desperate. We are spending a fortune sourcing conventional soya,” said one food industry executive.

The problems firms could face in ensuring respect for the rules were highlighted last month in Switzerland, when a consignment of Toblerone bars had to be removed from Swiss supermarket shelves after it was discovered that they contained GM-derived ingredients, even though the manufacturer had received assurances that this was not the case.

In the EU, labelling of basic agricultural commodities will be covered by the recently proposed amendment to the directive covering the release of GMOs into the environment.

Although finished foodstuffs will be covered by the Novel Foods Regulation, due to come into force in May, there has as

yet been no agreement on how to define when a product is 'equivalent' to a conventional one - a key element of the rules agreed earlier this year after half a decade of debate.

The Netherlands, Austria and Denmark have already introduced national rules which differ from each other considerably. “By officially devolving food-labelling responsibilities to member states, the single market in foodstuffs could be brought to an immediate virtual standstill,” said a spokesman for Kraft.

The industry claims the eventual upshot of this situation will be that similar products stacked next to each other on a shelf will carry completely different labels.

Claus Conzelmann of Nestlé believes the approach adopted in the Netherlands is the most appropriate model for the whole of Europe. This labels products as being “made with the help of modern biotechnology”.

But even if the novel foods problem can be worked out, this still leaves difficulties with derivatives such as lecithin, soya oil and cornflour which are used in a multitude of finished foods.

“The Environment Commissioner thinks that by asking firms to label everything, that will push its way up the production chain. But there is no legislative linkage, and derivatives just drop into a black hole,” said Cynthia von Maerestetten of Kraft Jacobs Suchard.

A number of major multinationals more accustomed to competing with each other are now considering working together to put pressure on the Commission to bring some consistency to a policy which is becoming increasingly opaque.

They are calling on the institution to commit itself to agreeing detailed rules for labelling soya and maize derivatives within 60 days.

But this appears something of a pipedream, given that officials in the Commission's secretariat-general are only now beginning work on the overview report on GMOs and labelling which was promised on 2 April.

After some doubt about who in the Commission would be responsible for the initiative, it will be published, possibly as early as next month, under the auspices of Commission President Jacques Santer.

But the task will not be easy. The report will have to pull together into a coherent whole existing measures from Bjerregaard, planned changes to general labelling directives, the labelling elements of the Novel Foods Regulation and upcoming legislation from Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler on GMOs in animal feed.