According to the Wall Street Journal, legislation passed in Vermont in 2014 created the first mandatory GMO labeling law of its kind, requiring food makers to label products that contained any genetically engineered ingredients, including corn, soy and sugar beets.
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The federal bill calls for a QR code that tells people where to find more information about ingredients in the food they’re buying.
The House passed a different version of this bill last summer.
“I don’t think that the average consumer is going to go around scanning every product for information, but some will want to know and this provides access”, said Jim Flannery, Grocery Manufacturers Association’s senior executive vice president for operations and industry collaboration.
“Nearly 1,100 organizations in the food-producing community are united behind this bill to set a uniform, national standard that protects American family farmers and small businesses”.
Just Label It’s concession is the most significant development outside the Senate since June 27 when the broader Organic Trade Association with much hand wringing announced it was supporting the Senate compromise bill. It comes before both a concurrence vote in the House and before the Senate compromise bill has landed on President Obama’s desk.
“It also contains ambiguities that could needlessly narrow the scope of biotechnologies covered and is vague on what GMO content levels require labeling and enforcement penalties for non-compliance”, says Just Label It chairman Gary Hirshberg.
New measures would force companies to disclose whether their products contain GMOs – but how they disclose that is up to them.
Consumer advocates are especially concerned about how the labeling will be done.
The bill is favored by the food industry as it does not have to alter its packaging state by state which could increase labeling and distribution costs. Though US senator Bernie Sanders offered an amendment to the legislation that would make Vermont’s consumer-friendly labelling requirement the national standard, it did not pass.
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Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said a federal statute would save consumers money and avoid imposing Vermonts law on other states, or a grab bag of state laws.
