Seventy-Eight Food Brands Go GE-Free in China

Seventy-eight food brands announced they are now officially committed to not selling genetically engineered (GE) food in China over the week end. These non-GE brands are listed in the Shoppers' Guide to Avoiding GE Food , which was launched by Greenpeace on Sunday. The announcement marks increasing market rejection of GE food in the world's largest food market.

The companies now committed to eliminating GE ingredients include internationally known brand names such as Danone, Heinz, Lay's, Lipton, Lotte and many others.

"Companies are committed to non-GE because GE food is unwanted," said Sze Pang Cheung, our Chinese Campaign Manager. "GE food brings no benefits to consumers, but there are health risks and irreversible environmental threats. On the contrary, conventional soya has been consumed in China for 5000 years. Our commonsense should tell us which is safer."

According to the latest survey done by Greenpeace in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou , 87 percent of respondents demand that food producers label their GE products. If foods are labelled, 40 percent of the respondents said they would choose non-GE food over GE food, while 24 percent would choose otherwise. Another 70 percent of the respondents said they would lose confidence in a brand if its products were found to contain GE ingredients. In contrast, 40 percent of the respondents would increase their confidence in brands that have committed to a non-GE policy.

"The GE industry is talking about 'Europeanization' of the global attitude to GE food, and we see it is happening in China," said Sze Pang Cheung. While the Chinese government has lately given in to the US pressure and granted safety permits to import GE products, Chinese consumers seem to be worried. Last year, a young mother from Shanghai, Zhu Yanling, sued food giant Nestlé for not labelling the GE product which she had been buying for her two-year old baby.

To mark the official launch of the first Shoppers Guide in China, Greenpeace volunteers handed out the Guide to consumers in the busy spots in Shanghai and Guangzhou to inform consumers of non-GE products in the market. The Guide is also available for download in sina.com, the most popular Chinese portal site which has more than 23 million hits everyday. So far our chinese site has had thousands of hits and 1500 Shoppers Guides have been downloaded.

More information:

Shoppers' Guide to Avoiding GE Food (Chinese)

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