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General Mills is doing GMO labeling, because it’s just easier

by Larae9589jlya Posted on March 18, 2016

General Mills is doing GMO labeling, because it’s just easier

By on 18 Mar 2016commentsShare

General Mills announced Friday that it would start labeling its products containing genetically modified ingredients. You’ll see them on packaging soon, and you can already check the status of your Count Chocula Cereal and Nature Valley Granola Bars at a company website. The move comes ahead of a Vermont law mandating GMO labels in that state, and because there is no easy way to separate products going to one state, the company decided to add labels nationwide.

“We can’t label our products for only one state without significantly driving up costs for our consumers and we simply will not do that,” wrote Jeff Harmening, General Mills’ chief operating officer, on the food giant’s blog.

The announcement follows a failed bid earlier this week by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) to fast-track a bill that would have blocked the Vermont labeling law. The Senate shot down that bill on Wednesday. But the measure is likely to re-emerge in coming months, and could still pass. Apparently, “likely” and “could” aren’t reassuring enough for General Mills.

With the exception of organic companies, the food industry had been united in pushing against mandatory labeling of genetically engineered ingredients. But as the Vermont law comes into effect July 1, companies are beginning to break ranks.

Campbell’s Soup announced earlier this year that it would begin labeling its GMO products, and support either a mandatory labeling law or a voluntary labeling law, as long as it established a national standard. Now General Mills seems to have decided that it can’t gamble on Congress providing a deus ex machina, and followed the lead of Campbell’s Soup. It’s likely that more will join them.

Companies that were marching together are now breaking out of formation. If each company goes its own way there will be much less pressure on Congress to pass a bill blocking labeling.

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General Mills is doing GMO labeling, because it’s just easier

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7 Normal Snacks With a Crazy Amount of Sugar

by RodrigoMota Posted on March 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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Call us greedy, self-centered, or overly idealistic, but no one should ever accuse Americans of being bitter: We devour more added sugar than people in any other country—30 teaspoons a day by some estimates. (Indians, on the other end of the spectrum, consume just one.)

The reasons go back to the 1960s, when supermarkets proliferated in US cities and readily available corn-syrupy sodas and juice drinks supplanted milk on the dinner table. By 1996, the daily calories we got from added sweeteners had increased by more than 35 percent.

On top of that, during the low-fat frenzy of the 1980s and ’90s, manufacturers replaced the flavorful natural oils in their products with sweeteners. “Now it’s challenging to find a food without added sugar,” says Dr. Andrew Bremer, a pediatric endocrinologist and program director in the diabetes, endocrinology, and metabolic diseases division at the National Institutes of Health. Indeed, today a full three-quarters of the packaged foods that we purchase—including everything from whole-wheat bread and breakfast cereals to salad dressings—contain extra sweeteners.

That’s a problem: Naturally occurring sugars (the kind in fruit, for example) come with fiber, which helps us regulate the absorption of food. Without fiber, sugar can overwhelm your system, eventually leading to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. Given these risks, experts suggest dramatically cutting your intake of extra sweets. In March, the World Health Organization recommended that 5 percent of your daily energy come from added sugars, which for an adult of average weight comes out to roughly six teaspoons—about 25 grams.

The trouble is that it’s hard to tell how much added sugar you’re actually eating. You’ve probably learned to spot cane juice and corn syrup, but what about barley malt, dextrose, and rice syrup—and the 56 other names for added sweeteners?

What’s more, food companies aren’t required to distinguish on labels between added and naturally occurring sugars. The US Department of Agriculture used to list added sugars in an online nutrient database, but it removed this feature in 2012 after companies claimed that the exact proportion of added sugar was a trade secret.

Last year, the Food and Drug Administration proposed changing nutrition labels and requiring companies to display both added and naturally occurring sugars. But industry giants like Hormel and General Mills are objecting—and even if a new label gets approved, it could still be years before packaging changes.

In the graphic above, we crunched the numbers on some everyday snacks and meals to discover just how easy it is to reach six teaspoons.

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7 Normal Snacks With a Crazy Amount of Sugar

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Is the new Whole Foods rating system creating an inferiority complex for zucchini?

by ncf01r Posted on October 15, 2014

Is the new Whole Foods rating system creating an inferiority complex for zucchini?

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15 Oct 2014 6:37 PM

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On Wednesday, Whole Foods started issuing ratings for its fruit, veggies, and flowers to measure the quality of farming practices. The rating system is simple: Fresh food is divided up as “good,” “better,” and “best.” It’s like getting gold, red, or green stars from your kindergarten teacher! Except it’s Whole Foods, instead of Mrs. Carter, grading you — and it’s judging greenhouse gas emissions, ecosystem management, and farmworker treatment, instead of coloring book pages.

Here is some of what Whole Foods is measuring (click here for the full list):

[F]arming practices that evaluate, protect and improve soil health. Examples include composting, rotating crops and using the latest science to measure and enhance nutrients in the soil.

[F]arming practices that create better working conditions. Examples include reducing pesticide risks, providing protective equipment and participating in third-party auditing programs to promote safe conditions and fair compensation.

[F]arming practices that protect and conserve water. Examples include rainwater collection and drip irrigation.

[F]arming practices that protect native species. Examples include planting “bee-friendly” wildflowers, improving conservation areas and taking steps to protect beneficial insects from harmful chemicals.

Fruits, flowers, and vegetables that come from overseas also have to comply with the rating system — yes, Whole Foods imports produce from overseas — even when the country’s standards for pesticides and soil composition are different.

Retrieving the information to issue the labels is complicated, too, and some farmers have insinuated that the system may be taking things a teeny bit too far. Sellers have to undergo a thorough certification process, answering questions about the minutia of each farms’ practices. Reports the New York Times:

“For instance, they want to know about earthworms and how many I have in my soil,” said Mr. Lyman, whose family has grown apples, peaches, pears, and various berries on their farm in Middlefield, Conn., since 1741. “I thought, How do I count every earthworm? It’s going to take a while.”

So while farmers are counting worms in the dirt to scramble for the coveted “best” title, Whole Foods says that it’s just trying to be more honest. Or, here comes the buzzword, more transparent. Plus, the fancy organic food seller now has to compete with cheaper super-companies like Walmart, McDonald’s, General Mills, and Cargill, who are starting up similar transparency campaigns (*cough* marketing ploys) — like McDonald’s recent social media blitz — in order to appeal to curious consumers such as those meddling kids, millennials.

Whether the transparency campaign will make a difference for Whole Food’s sales is still up in the air, but farmers can rest assured that they will be certain to score, at the very least, “good.”

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Is the new Whole Foods rating system creating an inferiority complex for zucchini?

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GMO-free cereal? Middle America shrugs

by Frances4450 Posted on September 25, 2014

GMO-free cereal? Middle America shrugs

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25 Sep 2014 4:07 PM

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It’s starting to look like the average eater doesn’t care about GMOs.

At the very beginning of 2014, General Mills announced that it was making its original Cheerios without any genetically engineered ingredients. Back then, I wrote:

The company said it’s not responding to pressure; rather, it’s interested in the possibility that customers might “embrace” (i.e. buy more) GM-free Cheerios. Even if that’s true, activists may have rallied enough interest to get General Mills’ attention, and I suspect that the company wants to try labeling as an experiment. Will a non-GM label increase sales? Will customers pay a higher price? The answers to these questions will be valuable to the company in planning for the possibility of labeling laws.

So what data is this experiment generating? Well, in March, General Mills said that it had gotten a lot of positive publicity but so far had seen no increase in sales. That was too short a window of time to reach any conclusions; I wanted to wait and see what happened.

A few days after the General Mills announcement, and without any media fanfare, Post Foods put a GMO-free label on its Grape Nuts. While Cheerios boxes noted their GMO-free status discreetly on the side panel below the nutrition facts, Grape Nuts put a Non-GMO Project sticker on front. Now that’s a more interesting experiment: Do customers know/care enough to look for GMO information? Does slapping a notice on the front of a box change anything?

We received a little more data the other day, when 98 percent of General Mills shareholders voted against going GMO-free with the rest of its foods. When I asked General Mills how Cheerios sales were, they gave me exactly the same line they’d been saying since March: “The consumer response has been largely positive, but we really haven’t seen any positive impact on sales.”

I don’t have data on Grape Nuts sales yet. But that’s a brand that Post has been trying to resuscitate for years.

I’ve asked Post if it will tell us more. In the meantime, here’s what I think is going on: People who know and care about GMOs aren’t likely to buy Cheerios in the first place.

I should know. In my household as a kid, cereal in general was suspect because it was so often a vehicle for sugar. And even low-sugar options, like Cheerios and Grape Nuts (suggested motto: “Like sit-ups for your mouth — you know it’s healthy when it makes you hurt”) seemed like half-hearted, mass-market substitutes. If we wanted healthy cereal, we’d barter for granola handcrafted by Waldorf school students.

I’m guessing General Mills is probably on the right track. GMO-concerned eaters want more than a label — they want brands that reflect their own culture, like, say, Annie’s Homegrown. Didn’t some company just buy it?

More by Nathanael Johnson← PreviousCargill promises to stop chopping down rainforests. This is huge.
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This Huge Corporation Is Tackling Climate Change—Because It’s a Threat to the Bottom Line

by FelipeWHKvsc Posted on July 28, 2014

Mother Jones

A few months ago, the international food manufacturing giant General Mills was branded a “clear laggard” by climate activists for not doing enough to cut its carbon footprint. Oxfam International accused the company of dragging its feet on reducing so-called “scope 3” greenhouse gas emissions—those not directly controlled by the company, but essential in making its products; for example, emissions from a farm contracted by General Mills to grow the oats that eventually wind up in your cereal bowl. Oxfam also faulted the company for not using its clout to engage directly with governments to “positively influence climate change policy.”

General Mills’ worldwide sales total $17.9 billion, and it owns familiar consumer brands like Cheerios, Old El Paso, and Pillsbury.

Today, Oxfam is claiming big victory: General Mills has released a new set of climate policies that Oxfam says makes it “the first major food and beverage company to promise to implement long-term science-based targets to cut emissions.”

The policy states unequivocally that General Mills believes that climate change is a big threat to global food security and its future business model:

As a global food company, General Mills recognizes the risks that climate change presents to humanity, our environment and our livelihoods. Changes in climate not only affect global food security but also impact General Mills’ raw material supply which, in turn, affects our ability to deliver quality, finished product to our consumers and ultimately, value to our shareholders.

Here are the key points of General Mills’ announcement:

By August 2015, the company has promised to account for emissions across its entire operation and to set clear reduction targets.
The company promises to reduce emissions with the goal of keeping the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The company also aims to achieve “zero net deforestation” in “high-risk supply chains” by 2020. (This doesn’t necessarily mean “zero deforestation,” but rather that destroyed forests are replaced). General Mills says these high-risk supply chains include land that provides palm oil, packaging fiber, beef, soy, and sugarcane.
The company will also now disclose its top three suppliers of palm oil and sugarcane.

In another big step, the company also announced today that it will join BICEP—Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy)—”to advocate more closely with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation,” according to the company. The group of 31 companies (including big guns like eBay and Starbucks) is run by the non-profit Ceres, and is designed to help businesses directly lobby policymakers on issues like renewable energy, green transportation, and pollution controls on power plants. Ceres also campaigns to get companies and investors to adopt more sustainable environmental practices.

Oxfam spokesman Grossman-Cohen believes that his group’s campaign helped motivate General Mills to make the changes. “It is in General Mills’ business interest to address climate change,” he wrote to me in an email. “But there’s no doubt that the public outcry helps ensure that the company’s efforts are as robust as they can be.”

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This Huge Corporation Is Tackling Climate Change—Because It’s a Threat to the Bottom Line

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Big Food Still Plans to Sue Vermont Over New GMO Labeling Law

by BlondelCSS Posted on June 6, 2014

Mother Jones

Last month, when Vermont passed a new law requiring food and beverage manufacturers to label genetically modified foods, Big Food went ballistic. The Grocers’ Manufacturers’ Association, a trade group that represents Monsanto, General Mills, Coca-Cola, and other giant food companies, warned that the labeling law—the first of its kind in the nation—was “costly” and “critically flawed,” and vowed to sue the state to force it to scrap the measure.

At the heart of the debate is the question of whether states should be allowed to regulate food labeling. The GMA argues that any laws requiring manufacturers to label genetically modified food should come from the federal government—and only if the feds deem GM foods are a health risk. But Vermont lawmakers argue that the state should be able to move forward on its own. “We believe we have a right to know what’s in the food we buy,” Peter Shumlin, the state’s Democratic governor, said in a statement last month.

The GMA insists that genetically modified foods are perfectly safe and pose no risks to human health: “They use less water and fewer pesticides, reduce crop prices by 15-30 percent and can help us feed a growing global population of seven billion people,” the group noted in a press release. But Vermont lawmakers maintain the new law is more about transparency than health, and that customers have a right to know whether genetically modified organisms are in their food. There’s popular support for that idea: 79 percent of Vermonters support labeling genetically modified food, according to a recent poll conducted by the Castleton Polling Institute for VTDigger, a Vermont media outlet.

That polling doesn’t seem to have affected the GMA’s position. The group hasn’t sued yet. But when I called to ask if the GMA still planned to sue Vermont, a GMA representative referred me to last month’s statement, which promises a lawsuit “in the coming weeks.” Get ready, Vermont—Big Food is coming for you.

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Big Food Still Plans to Sue Vermont Over New GMO Labeling Law

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