Whole Foods Market Backs California’s GMO Labeling Proposition 37

17 Sep, 2012

Whole Foods Market sup­ports California’s Proposition 37 requir­ing manda­tory label­ing of genet­i­cally engi­neered foods by July 1, 2014 because it has long believed its cus­tomers have the right to know how their food is pro­duced. However, the com­pany has some reser­va­tions with the propo­si­tion as drafted and hopes sev­eral issues can be addressed in the imple­men­ta­tion phase should vot­ers approve the mea­sure, including:

1. The use of 0.5% of the total weight as the upper limit for processed foods that con­tain one or more genet­i­cally engi­neered ingre­di­ents to be exempted from label­ing is incon­sis­tent with the long-established inter­na­tional label­ing stan­dard of 0.9%.

2. The peo­ple of California’s best inter­ests will not be prop­erly rep­re­sented as the enforce­ment of Proposition 37 will not be han­dled in part­ner­ship with the California Attorney General’s Office to ensure objec­tive guid­ance and impar­tial over­sight, but instead by pri­vate plain­tiff attor­neys pur­su­ing civil litigation.

Because of the incon­sis­tency in thresh­olds and the lack of Attorney General over­sight, man­u­fac­tur­ers could be com­pelled to label prod­ucts with “May be Partially Produced with Genetic Engineering” even if it is not the case to avoid costly lit­i­ga­tion and pro­tect them­selves. This could result in con­sumers receiv­ing inac­cu­rate infor­ma­tion, which is con­trary to the intent of the propo­si­tion itself.

Additionally, Whole Foods Market is encour­aged by the par­al­lel effort in Washington State with their pro­posed Initiative Measure No. 522 as it already addresses some of the con­cerns of California’s Proposition 37. These two state ini­tia­tives could pos­si­bly lead to a broader effort to cre­ate one fed­eral stan­dard on label­ing of genet­i­cally engi­neered foods sim­i­lar to how the National Organic Standards were formed. One set of rules and uni­form sup­port of a consumer’s right to know would ulti­mately be in the best inter­est of all.

For more infor­ma­tion: www.wholefoodsmarket.com/non-GMO

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