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J. R. BLANCHFIELD, Food Science, Food Technology and Food Law Consultant, Institute of Food Science & Technology (IFST) External Affairs Chair, 17 Arabia Close, Chingford, London, E4 DU, England

Contrasting with the view maintained by FDA that distinctive labeling of method of production is unnecessary for GM products which have been determined as GRAS, from the outset in the EU and particularly in the UK, there has been an insistence on distinctive labeling of GM foods and ingredients, to provide freedom of informed consumer choice. Initially this was made extremely difficult by the failure to segregate GM soya and corn from their non-GM equivalents. While the EU Commission was taking time to secure agreement of all Member States to detailed provisions for labeling Regulations, distinctive labeling was operated by industry under a voluntarily scheme, and then increasingly by more and more comprehensive legislation. Current labeling legislation extends to minor ingredients and additives and to foods and ingredients in foodservice. From January 1999 a pre-planned intensive orchestrated activist campaign, directed at a public susceptible as a result of BSE, engineered a major shift in public opinion, and this, accompanied by intimidation of major retailers, resulted by mid-1999 in a widespread move by retailers and manufacturers to exclude GM foods and ingredients and to make “GM-free claims” in labeling and advertising; which in turn required regulatory establishment of a threshold level of GM “contamination” below which a material may be designated “GM-free”, plus associated analytical methodology. In the process, freedom of choice was an incidental casualty.