Engineering a clean bill of genetic health

By Yoke Har Lee

Sanitarium Health Food Company is just beginning to unravel the complexities of guaranteeing its products will be free from genetically-engineered ingredients.

Implementing what is called an identity preserved (IP) system to ensure its soybeans are GE-free has raised the cost of that ingredient by 15 per cent, the company's regional manager for New Zealand, Jim Richards, told the Business Herald.

He reckons that 2 per cent of that cost will eventually trickle down to consumers. So far, the only product Sanitarium has guaranteed is absolutely GE-free is its So Good soymilk.

Tracking the hundreds, maybe thousands of ingredients that go into making all its food groups - spreads, soymilk, breakfast cereals, meat-free substitutes, nuts/dried fruits, food bars and breakfast drinks - to ensure they are GE-free is an arduous task.

But it is a job Sanitarium is not prepared to rush through until it finds a fool-proof system. Which is why the company has chosen not to label its So Good soymilk GE-free until it has put in place audit systems for all its ingredients.

Mr Richards said: "We initially set ourselves a target. Once we found ourselves in the difficulty of sourcing permanently GE-free products, those [targets] have gone back and back.

"Now we have basically gone to a stage where we have said we won't make any claims product by product until we have the assurance. We are not going to cut corners to reach those targets. When we get the system in place, it will be accurate and sustainable."

Outside companies have been engaged to help Sanitarium put together audit systems for its GE-free plan. Sanitarium, which has operated in New Zealand for 100 years, is one of only a few food manufacturers in this country - another being Hubbard Foods - that has made a commitment to manufacture only GE-free foods.

Mr Richards said while the IP system was used for soybeans, the same would not be applicable to wheat, due to logistics and costs. So far, Sanitarium's wheat source is GE-free based on its country of origin. But in Sanitarium's eyes, this system will not hold up in the future.

"Some people have relied on country of origin [as a means of getting GE-free sources]. We just don't see it as an iron-clad way of operating. So what we said to ourselves was, we need a system which can adequately - even in countries where GE food was grown which will ultimately mean many countries - do that."

Country of origin as a means of ensuring GE-free food will only hold water if the country stays GE-free, something which is unlikely as more countries turn to genetic engineering in food production, he said.

With the soybeans that it uses, Sanitarium goes back to the seed stage, ensuring that the seeds are GE-free. "It works on the basis that the seed is certified GE- free before they are planted. Every step of the way - harvesting right through to transport or storage, and when it arrives here for manufacturing processes - to ensure they are certified GE-free seeds."

Sanitarium found it particularly tricky to get suppliers to honour the same GE-free commitment that it made. This is because ingredient suppliers are more removed from the consumer, Mr Richards said. "What we have found is that asking the suppliers [if they are GE-free] alone is not good enough because they may not know unless they have been involved with the manufacturing and the processing. They may also have no full understanding of how difficult it is for us, once we have given consumers that assurance."

So for the rest of Sanitarium's product range, the company is going through supplier by supplier, ingredient by ingredient to track the source and to put in place audit trails to get to its GE-free state.

"We really have had to take on the suppliers, to ensure that the assurances that they give us have been treated with the same vigour that our consumers would expect of us.

"We found that to be a very, very long process. Going through some of the oils, the multidextrins - it is no simple task to go all the way back to have a guarantee that would last. We can guarantee that this batch is fine but the guarantee has to be that all the batches are fine. That is a very difficult process," he added.

The Australia New Zealand Food Authority will decide on August 3 what labelling regime to adopt for GE-foods. But legislation, according to Mr Richards, may not go as far as some consumers would like. Sanitarium is not anti-genetic engineering, but Mr Richards said: "Overriding that is the fact we are pro-consumer."