Musgrave Cash and Carry is selling cooking oil made from GM soya or GM rapeseed. This company is part of the Musgrave Group which owns SuperValu and Centra, Budgens and Londis (in the UK), and Musgrave Wholesale Services including Musgrave Cash and Carry, Musgrave Foodservices, Daybreak and Day-Today. This clearly violates every single one of the corporate social responsibility, sustainable development, labour and human rights values claimed in Musgrave's Ethical Trading Policy.
Morrisons stores in the UK were found selling US long-grain rice contaminated with Bayer's illegal and unlabelled LL601 GM variety which is not approved in the EU. If Morrisons has stores in Northern Ireland, they could be doing the same. Friends of the Earth named the affected products as Morrisons American Long Grain Rice 500g, with a best before date of May 2008, and Morrisons American Long Grain Brown Rice 1kg, with a best before date of July 2008.
Aldi stores in Germany were found selling US long-grain rice contaminated with Bayer's illegal and unlabelled LL601 GM variety which is not approved in the EU. If Aldi has stores in Northern Ireland, they could be doing the same. The contaminated brand is called Bon-Ri rice.
Many restaurants may be serving food containing GM ingredients, both legal and illegal. Moreover, they may also serve conventional food cooked in oil made from GM soya of GM rapeseed. Please ask any restaurant you visit if they use GM ingredients or GM cooking oil, and let us know if they do.
Please contact us if you discover any other GM-labelled food on sale in Ireland or Northern Ireland.
GM foods in the EU
In the EU, any food containing more than 0.9% of GM ingredients must carry a label stating "contains genetically modified ingredients" or words to that effect.
But because of a loophole in EC labeling law, meat, eggs and dairy produce from livestock fed on a diet that includes GM animal feed does not have to carry a GM label.
At present, products from about 16 GMOs can legally be marketed in the EU: these include soya, maize, processed foods derived from oilseed rape and maize and oil from cottonseeds. These products are normally used as food ingredients.
Soya beans are processed and used as an ingredient in a wide variety of foods. It is estimated that up to 60% of processed foods contain soya ingredients. An example of
such an ingredient is soya lecithin, an additive (E322) which is frequently used as an emulsifier in processed foods.
However, because of the growing scientific evidence of their health risks and environmental impacts, 70% of EU consumers refuse GM food, so there is virtuallly no market for GM food in Europe.
For these reasons as well as the legal implications of GMO contamination incidents, the EU's 30 top food retailers and 30 top food and drink brands have put GM-free policies and commitments in place since late 2004. This reveals a massive international food industry rejection of GM ingredients. The companies listed cut across the industry from food and drink manufacturers to retailers, and include everything from snacks and ready meals to pet food and beer. The combined total food and drink sales of the 49 companies with a stated non-GM policy in their main market or throughout the EU (27 retailers and 22 food and drink producers) amounts to €646 billion, more than 60% of the total €1,069 billion European food and drink sales.
For details, download the Greenpeace report No market for GM labelled food in Europe (warning: this large 2MB pdf file may take a while to download if you have a slow internet connection).
GM foods in Ireland
Most non-organic meat and dairy produce now sold in Ireland comes from livestock whose diet includes animal feed containing GM soya, GM maize, GM corn gluten, distiller's grain made from GM maize, and / or GM rapeseed:
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