Robyn O'Brien

This year, a record number of food companies in the Grocery Manufacturers Association have announced that they are dumping artificial ingredients, genetically engineered ingredients and other additives from their products in order to meet consumer demand in the 21st century.

And just this week, Campbell’s announced that they were breaking with the association and not only labeling GMOs, but also calling for mandatory labeling of GMOs and no longer funding any initiatives that got in front of giving consumers information about their food.

It is a huge move, and the retailers and grocery stores were quick to share their thanks with the company. Why? Grocery stores are the front line. They see first hand that 21st century consumers are looking for more transparency and more food that is free-from artificial ingredients. They see what consumers are buying, and they know that 45% of new product launches in 2014 were non-GMO.

#Dumpthejunk has become the rallying cry, as a growing number of consumers call on companies to remove artificial ingredients, GMOs, HFCS, dyes and other additives, as we find ourselves reading labels because of diabetes, food allergies, ADHD and other conditions now impacting the people that we love.

In the first month of January of 2015, there was such bloodshed when the food industry reported earnings. The new CEO of Kraft was amazed at the company’s lack of insight on the changing face of consumer demand and said, “It’s clear that our world has changed and our consumers have changed, and our company has not changed enough.”

Contrast that with the first week of 2016 and Campbell’s call to action.

This change didn’t happen overnight, and Campbell’s is quickly being recognized for taking a leadership position when the Grocery Manufacturers Association did not.

So why has the association that is supposed to help its members navigate this change so caught off guard? Why has the association insisted that consumers do not deserve transparency into how their food is made? Their position did a disservice to the industry and caught many of the members off guard.

In no way is this more obvious than in the earnings hit so many of these companies took last January. Why didn’t the Grocery Manufacturers Association give its members the heads up? Almost all of its members struggled to meet earnings and were failing to meet consumer demand.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association is the voice of more than 300 leading food, beverage and consumer product companies, but will it be a relic of the 20^th century? And why are these companies slowly peeling off these ingredients one by one in a slow and often reactionary process? It’s death by a thousand cuts.

A question that it starting to pop up is: Is the Grocery Manufacturers Association still delivering value to its members? Would members be better served by forming a new organization? What if a new group started? Let’s just hypothetically call it the Food Production Association, and its mission was to meet the needs of companies in the 21^st century?

A look back at the history of the Grocery Manufacturers Association suggests this might be a good idea.

Founded in 1908, the Grocery Manufacturers Association is a self-described, active, vocal advocate for its member companies and a trusted source of information about the industry and the products consumers rely on.

But do 21st century consumers actually turn to this organization today or is it a relic of the 20th century? And is it an advocate for its members?

The organization’s website goes on to say:

“A vital role of GMA is to serve as a central resource for our members, providing industry model practices and a means for collaboration between members, retailers and service providers on important challenges and opportunities facing the industry.”

The organization may have done that twenty years ago, but is it still doing that today?

The landscape of health has changed, and it is changing the landscape of food. Today, the rates of diabetes is skyrocketing, 1 in 4 children has a chronic condition, 1 in 13 children has a food allergy, 1 in 10 has asthma and 1 in 68 has autism, with cancer now the leading cause of death by disease in American children. The rates of these conditions are escalating, and parents are reading labels.

Did any of us expect motherhood or fatherhood to look like this? Not at all. No one would choose autism, life threatening food allergies or cancer. No one. But we find ourselves face to face with these conditions every day. It is changing so many things in our lives, and it is changing how we approach the grocery store.

Some companies want to spend millions of dollars debating how we got here. Parents don’t have time. Their hands are tied managing these health conditions. CNN/TIME reported that the additional costs of raising a child with food allergies is $4,200/year. Consumers want transparency and denying them basic information about what is in the food we are feeding our loved ones is out of touch.

Over the last year, more than 60 state laws have been introduced to label genetically engineered ingredients in foods. Consumers know about it, companies know about it. Companies inside the Grocery Manufacturers Association are producing product lines without these ingredients, and those product lines are profitable pieces of their portfolio. One look at the success of Kroger’s Simple Truth, “free-from” line demonstrates what a brand can do when it removes additives, GMOs, high fructose corn syrup and more.

Consumers want “free-from” food. It’s not about debating the “how” or the “why” we got here. It’s about meeting her where she stands in the aisle of the grocery store, holding onto a child with diabetes or food allergies, or shopping for parent with cancer.

Everyone is recognizing the need for food free from artificial ingredients. Panera Bread recently announced that they are pulling these ingredients from their products, Target’s Simply Balanced has committed to removing genetically engineered ingredients by the end of 2014, and Kroger is seeing record earnings growth with its Simple Truth product line, free from artificial ingredients and genetically engineered ingredients. The brand went from $0 to $1 billion in revenue in two years

So if companies that are dumping the junk are being rewarded by both consumers and the stock market, shareholders and stakeholders, what purpose does the Grocery Manufacturers Association serve by getting in the way of that? Is that in the best interest of its members?

As the Association spends record amounts filing a lawsuit against the state of Vermont which has just taken a big step towards bringing transparency to its food system for its consumers, you have to wonder if this is money well spent for its members. What if instead, these members decided to leave the organization and start another one, one that truly met their needs in the face of changing consumer demand and the changing health of American consumers. Or what if some got aggressive and filed a “loss of business” lawsuit against it given the decline that companies like Kellogg’s are seeing in sales and the resulting employee layoffs as they entrench on the GMO labeling issue?

21st century families want free-from food. It isn’t complicated, and shareholders and stakeholders are rewarding the companies that understand that and are delivering products that meet that need.

They’re not debating the science, they’re not filing lawsuits, they are simply meeting us where we stand: in the aisles of the grocery store shopping for the 1 in 3 American children that now has allergies, asthma, ADHD or autism. They are building a new food economy, becoming icons for the 21st century consumer, making the Grocery Manufacturers Association look like a relic of the 20th century.

The $2.1 trillion food, beverage and consumer packaged goods industry employs 14 million U.S. workers. As consumers opt out of food loaded with artificial ingredients, demand is growing. From 2013-2018, demand for organic is expected to grow 14%, but in the United States, less than 1% of farmland is under organic farm management which means that we have to turn to countries like China and Romania for non-GMO or organic food. We are literally outsourcing that entire economic opportunity. It is not in the interest of our food companies, our families or our farmers.

If the Grocery Manufacturers Association was true to its mission it would meet the 21st century consumer where she stands, and it would be addressing this supply chain issue for its members. But it’s not.

As it stands, it is quickly becoming a relic of the 20th century, opening the door for another industry organization to form.

Can you imagine if Kroger, Target, Chipotle and other food companies joined together to form the Food Production Association whose mission was to build out a clean and safe food system and to secure the supply chain for 21st century families? Instead of channeling member dollars into lawsuits, it could grow the base of US farmland under organic management, so that we don’t outsource this economic opportunity for our companies, farmers and country to our trading partners.

Cancer, autism, food allergies and other conditions we are seeing in the health of our loved ones are not “trends,” neither is the demand for transparency. American consumers have a right to know whether the EPA regulates their corn as a pesticide or not. Sixty percent of the world’s population has been given that right.

Imagine an organization for the food industry that actually focused on securing a non GMO supply chain for American companies, rather than fight this shift in consumer demand and outsource this economic opportunity to China and Romania. Here’s what a logo might look like. Perhaps it’s time for the big food companies to leave the 20th century in the past and to their consumers in the 21st century.

Can you imagine the kind of food system that we could build if Campbell’s, White Wave, General Mills and others joined Kroger, Costco, Hampton Creek and companies building the new food economy and executed a conscious uncoupling from the Grocery Manufacturers Association?   What if these companies got together to start a new organization, one that works for the needs of both 21st century consumers and food companies.

It’s food for thought.  On this changing landscape, the field in front of us is wide open.

A week ago, headlines swirled that the GMO labeling bill that was introduced by the food industry was dead.

It wasn’t true.

It now appears that legislation could be tucked quietly into the spending bill, set for passage before year end.

This bill is controversial in many ways, but part of the concern is the precedent that this piece of legislation would set by taking away state rights.

State rights are critical for our government’s balance of power. Since our founding as a country, the states have played such an important role in setting policy.

If the states see something happening at the federal level of which they do not approve, they have the power to take action.  One of the most recent examples of this is the legalization of gay marriage.  It happened at the state level first and then drove change at the national level.  Another example is the seat belt law. It started at the state level, too.  New York State was the first to introduce seat belt laws in the early 1980s. Today, we all wear them.  And perhaps most visibly. the women’s right to vote also began at the state level.

In other words, state rights are critically important to protect.

So what is happening here?  A lot.

On December 2, U.S. Senator Jon Tester, the United States Senate’s only working farmer, took to the Senate floor to demand that a controversial genetically modified organism (GMO) bill not be included as a rider to the omnibus appropriations bill.

But in a very quiet move that came in conjunction with this jockeying and the FDA’s recent approval of genetically modified salmon, the FDA also announced that the term “non-GMO” could be considered deceptive advertising.

According to the legal website, JD Supra Business Advisor:

Labels describing food products as “Non-GMO” are a no-go for the Food and Drug Administration pursuant to new guidance released on labeling food with or without genetically altered plant ingredients.

Importantly, the agency did not mandate that manufacturers disclose the use of genetically modified ingredients, and held to its position that GE products are not materially different from non-engineered foods. (We find this ironic, as the United States Patent and Trademark Office grants patents on these products because of their unique characteristics, traits and attributes which have never before existed in the food supply).

The agency did set forth certain rules regarding terminology. The term “Non-GMO,” short for non-genetically modified organisms, conveys an overly broad and inaccurate meaning when applied to food products, the FDA said, as most foods do not contain entire organisms. Instead, the agency pushed for the use of label terminology such as “Not bioengineered” or “This oil is made from soybeans that were not genetically engineered.”

“In general, an accurate statement about whether a food was not produced using bioengineering is one that provides information in a context that clearly refers to bioengineering technology,” the FDA explained.”

Note, an accurate statement about whether a food was produced using bioengineering is one that provides information in a context that clearly refers to bioengineering technology.  

The law site goes on to say: “The agency provided examples of potentially misleading labeling. A statement could be deceptive when evaluated in the context of the entire label, such as a claim that the product “does not contain bioengineered soybean oil” for a product that is made largely of flour derived from GE corn and a small amount of non-GE soybean oil. Such a statement may require a careful qualification “in order to ensure that consumers understand its significance,” the FDA cautioned.

If the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patents genetically modified foods for their unique attributes and characteristics, in some cases requiring that these foods be regulated by the EPA not the FDA, it appears that the FDA might also want to call out genetically modified foods for failure to disclose, misleading labels and the failure to inform consumers of these material differences identified by the USPTO.

Also problematic are claims such as “None of the ingredients in this food are genetically engineered” when some of the ingredients, like salt, are incapable of being processed through genetic engineering. Similarly, a statement that suggests or implies that a food product or ingredient is “safer, more nutritious, or otherwise has different attributes” than comparable foods because it was not GE may be false or misleading, the FDA said.

Yet it is because of the concerns over material differences that GMOs are labeled for over 60% of the world’s population.  So why does the FDA seem to operate under such a different standard?

The FDA said it has no plans to take action against labels making use of the “GMO” terminology, but cautioned advertisers that the use of terms like “GMO free” or “Non-GMO” could face false advertising challenges from consumers. It recommended that “manufacturers not use food labeling claims that indicate that a food is ‘free’ of ingredients derived through the use of biotechnology.”

To read the FDA guidance, click here.

Why it matters: The FDA’s guidance leaves manufacturers with a choice: they can decide not to disclose the use of genetically engineered ingredients in their products and avoid the headache of using the proper labeling terminology. Or they can opt for voluntary labeling and take a careful read of the final guidance to ensure their claims are not false or misleading.

What is absolutely fascinating here is how the FDA has honed in on this particular term.  Consumers are quickly learning that the term “natural”, often used by the food industry on their products, has no legal definition.  Several lawsuits have resulted because of the misleading nature of the term and claims by food manufacturers.

But these two aren’t the only terms. If the FDA wants to update its regulations and policies, it needs to look at all of the vocabulary, terms and adjectives currently employed by the food industry.

Because as consumers are quickly learning, “natural” isn’t the only meaningless term that the FDA has failed to define. Here are a few more that don’t have a definition, which again has consumers asking: Why is the FDA targeting only the non-GMO label here?

Terms with no FDA definitions include:

• 100% Natural
• Free-Range
• Pasture-Fed
• Grass-Fed
• Cage-Free
• Vegan
• No antibiotics

In the absence of any definition from the federal level, some states are trying to define these terms.  Some companies are.  Again, the lack of movement by the federal government speaks to the important role that states play in helping Americans understand what is in our food system, how our food is made and where it comes from.

Because, right now.  We are eating in the dark.  Want to let your Congressman know about this?  Please contact them using the look up feature below. We can build a better food system together.

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ex: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC 20500

In the first few minutes, she shines a powerful light on “cancer myths” and what happens to those who speak truth to power.

Sharyl is currently writing a book entitled Stonewalled (Harper Collins), which addresses the unseen influences of corporations and special interests on the information and images the public receives every day in the news and elsewhere.

Want to know why you should question sources and the confusing “controversies” that can appear in social media? The answer is in this video.