Email blast puts heat on GM beans

A can of chilli beans containing genetically modified corn may be withdrawn from New Zealand supermarkets after opponents swamped the importer with protest emails.

GE-Free New Zealand organiser Jon Carapiet spotted the words "genetically modified" in the small print of the ingredients list on American-made Stagg's Vegetable Garden Four-Bean Chilli at Foodtown in Auckland's St Luke's shopping centre last month.

The Australasian general manager of the United States-based importer Hormel Foods, Scott Martin, said yesterday that he had received 1000 emails from New Zealand "Green Party supporters" in the past week asking him to withdraw the product, and he was considering doing so.

"I daresay in New Zealand it may have received enough bad press to sound its death knell," he said.

"Americans are about as laissez-faire about GM as you can get, and Australians are somewhere in between, but New Zealand is just the country, like Sweden, that's taken its cleanness to heart. I can understand that."

He said the GM corn made up only 4 per cent of the product and was forced on the company because most American corn was now modified to withstand Monsanto weedkillers. It had been labelled as GM since new laws kicked in in December 2002.

"For someone after two years to say they just noticed it shows they clearly haven't been doing their job."

The fuss came as submissions are due to close tomorrow on a separate application by another American company, Monsanto, to amend the food safety code to allow a new corn that has been genetically modified to contain about twice the usual amount of a molecule called lysine.

The company says the corn will be used to feed pigs and chickens which "require the addition of supplemental lysine for optimal animal growth and performance".

Although the corn is intended solely for animals, the application says it is possible it "will inadvertently be commingled with conventional corn and enter the human food supply", so it wants the food code changed to allow this.

Food Standards Australia NZ, which is considering the application, says the "LY038" GM corn could potentially get into margarine, cooking oil, cereals, artificial sweeteners and other corn products, including beer and other alcoholic drinks which use corn in brewing or distilling processes.

An initial agency assessment said there was no reason to believe "that costs arising from such a variation to include food derived from corn line LY038 would outweigh the direct and indirect benefits to the community, Government or industry".

But Canterbury University's Institute of Gene Ecology has warned that some people might be allergic to the new corn, and has urged the food standards body to require human trials before approving any changes to the food code.

Food Standards Australia NZ has already approved 28 genetically modified varieties of corn, potatoes, canola, soybeans, sugarbeet, cotton and wheat for use in foods.