cross posted at annoyedomnivore.wordpress.com
General Mills recently made an announcement that one of their cereals, Cheerios, would henceforth be GMO-free. As they have pitted millions of dollars against campaigns to label GMO foods as such, it was somewhat perplexing as to why they made this move, particularly when Cheerios were virtually GMO-free to begin with. There are, at this time, no genetically modified oats, but the relatively small amount of sugar, derived from GMO beets, and cornstarch needed to be altered. Mark Bittman wrote in The New York Times that “General Mills has done little more than source non-GMO cornstarch and cane rather than beet sugar to use in production. (There are GMO beets, and almost all corn and soybeans grown in the United States use GMO seeds, whose products find their way into most processed foods.) This is what they’ve done for years in most of Europe, where products with GMOs are almost universally labeled as such.”
Given this, and the fact that the price of GMO-free Cheerios did not increase, one has to wonder what motivated General Mills to make this change. They themselves simply stated that “we did it because we think consumers may embrace it.” Hugh Grant, CEO of General Mills, went further by stating that “we’ve talked for years about [how] we would support voluntary labeling and that [it] was up to companies to do. I think [what] we saw last week was the first real life example of true voluntary labeling and probably a little bit of marketing as well.” Monsanto weighed in, calling the General Mills move “nothing more than a media stunt.”
There is, of course, more to this story. Back in November 2012, a group called GMO Inside launched a campaign to get Cheerios to become GMO-free. The campaign caused thousands of people to express their dislike of GMO ingredients in the cereal on the Facebook page that allowed users to create messages about what Cheerios meant to them, and the GMO Inside folks called in their army to post comments like “poison.” The app has been removed, as well as all the comments made with the app, but for some reason regular comments, like this one, have been allowed to remain. ”I used to feed Cheerios to my first child all the time. Now that I’m better educated on GMOs, I am DISGUSTED at the fact that I was naive enough to believe that at the time I was actually feeding her something healthy. I know much better now, and will never again let another Cheerios pass my children’s lips until they are GMO-free.”
Michelle Kim of GMO Inside, stated that “when [we] began in November 2012, we chose General Mills as our first target for using genetically modified ingredients in original Cheerios. It started when General Mills launched a customer feedback Facebook app, only to be flooded with comments from GMO Insiders, causing the whole project to be shut down.” General Mills was essentially forced by public opinion to make some kind of move, even though it cost them little and gained them some positive attention.
I posit, however, that this particular marketing ploy will one day haunt the company, as well as the entire biotech industry. General Mills is making a statement it otherwise would not have made unless forced by consumer demand. The potential for a larger wave of consumers to launch dissatisfaction campaigns on company social media sites, regardless of activists such as GMO Inside, is now apparent. On its own, this move by General Mills will have no impact on the biotech giants, but it will be interesting to see if they have opened Pandora’s Box, as it were, and have created a larger and more aware base of consumers averse to GMOs.
Multiple polls have shown that the American public overwhelmingly supports GMO labeling laws. A New York Times survey revealed 93% support, while a Washington Post poll showed 94%. The money spent by Monsanto, General Mills and other industry giants to defeat initiatives in California and Washington was massive – $22 million in California alone. The initiatives were defeated. Money, however, can’t trump an educated and aware public. As more people become aware of the dangers of GMOs and the pesticides needed to grow them, the demand for mandated labeling will increase. Indeed, a new report by the Institute for Responsible Technology shows that genetically altered foods “may be responsible for a number of gluten-related maladies including intestinal disorders now plaguing 18 million Americans.” The information will get out, and thanks to activist groups such as GMO Inside, that information will be more widely disseminated.
And be sure of this right now. No other cereals sold by General Mills will be made GMO-free. Most of them consist of corn and wheat, the majority of which are genetically modified, and at this point it would be difficult if not impossible to change to other ingredients.
There any number of perfectly wonderful organic cereals on the market, many of them with competitive pricing. Breakfast can also be oatmeal with berries and nuts, a piece of whole grain bread with naturally made nut butter, a poached egg over re-fried beans, or a vegetable smoothie with nuts and fruits. We can’t be perfect, but at least we can spend our money on locally produced food instead of handing it over to giant companies whose only interest is the bottom line.