'Cop-out' label on GE rules

WELLINGTON - New Zealand's proposed standards for labelling genetically engineered (GE) foods only mimic those claimed by the European food industry, critics of the technology say.

New Zealand and Australian Health Ministers agreed this week to label GE foods - including engineered oils, sugars and starches that the Australia New Zealand Food Authority (Anzfa) originally said it wanted exempted.

But critics of the engineered foods said yesterday that it appeared the compromise was a cop-out, because by manipulating the threshold at which labelling was required, it would be possible for Anzfa to achieve the same effect it had wanted through exempting the highly refined oils, sugars and starches.

The three food types are raw materials in processed foods and are included in most genetically modified foods used in New Zealand, but Anzfa standards general manager, Peter Liehne, has said they include highly refined ingredients that are chemically and otherwise indistinguishable from ingredients drawn from the traditional counterpart.

It would be impossible to police these ingredients and irrational to seek specific labelling of them, Mr Liehne said before this week's ministerial decision.

But a spokeswoman for Safe Food Campaign, Sue Kedgley, said that although the ministers had technically not excluded the refined sugars, oils and starches, their proposal was a "Clayton's labelling system."

In effect, it was a two-tier system, with one threshold level for genetically engineered foods, below which these foods would not trigger compulsory labelling, and another threshold, below which genetically engineered but refined ingredients would not trigger labelling.

Sue Kedgley said the proposed regime was in line with proposals in Europe by the Confederation of EU Food and Drink Industries (CIAA), which believed that products derived from herbicide-resistant soya and insecticide-resistant maize were actually equivalent to their conventional counterparts in terms of food safety.

The CIAA had proposed that in Europe the presence of a new protein "above a certain minimum quantity" should be the criterion triggering labelling of engineered foods.

Some European parliamentarians have complained that this approach would leave many products derived from GE organisms unlabelled, since the traces of modified protein would in most cases be removed during the heat treatment involved in food processing.

Sue Kedgley said thresholds proposed in Europe for DNA testing of foods had been criticised as insufficiently rigorous by the majority of European MPs and environmental groups such as Greenpeace, which had advocated segregation at source of GE and conventional products.

The same problems would apply to thresholds set for labelling food in New Zealand, she said.

"It is just a piece of double-speak," she said. "When you look at the fine print, the regime will be the same old two-tier proposal, made slightly worse by the inclusion of a meaningless category for products that 'may contain' engineered ingredients.

"The only system that will satisfy consumers is one that will allow them the choice, if they wish, of avoiding any foods containing any engineered ingredients.

"Anything less will force people to eat products made with a radical new technology about which some people have serious safety concerns."

Sue Kedgley said the concept of a threshold at which labelling requirements were triggered was in line with European Union regulations requiring all foods sold in shops and supermarkets to be clearly marked if they contained more than 2 per cent of genetically engineered ingredients.

This included ingredients where DNA resulting from genetic modification was present - such as in soya protein and soya flour. Soya oil and refined starches were not labelled, and the regime was based on testing at the end of the chain, for presence of modified protein or modified DNA.

European attitudes to labelling have been split, with Britain, Austria, Denmark, Germany and Sweden in favour of comprehensive labelling, an approach also backed by the European Parliament, the official said.

Other states have said they believe testing for the presence of GE material in proteins is sufficient, since the purpose of labels is to provide consumers with better product information, not to signal a health risk.

In a similar stance to that taken by authorities in Australia and New Zealand, European authorities have said product safety is not a labelling issue, because foods were not authorised for sale in the EU unless they were deemed safe.

Meanwhile, some of the biggest food companies in New Zealand, including Heinz Wattie and Sanitarium, are continuing to plan for labelling their products as free of GE ingredients. - NZPA