Exposing the “Shadow” of GMO food: Greenpeace Investigation on Unlabeled GMO Food Products in China’s Supermarkets The issue of transparency surrounding GMO foods has always been a hot topic in China. Following consumers’ growing calls for their right to know, there have been increased demands on the Ministry of Agriculture of China to fulfil their obligations to disclose governmental information regarding GMOs, even leading to administrative action against the Ministry, by the public. In order to gain an understanding of domestic sales of GMO foods and how they are labeled and regulated, Greenpeace conducted an investigation across China’s first-tier cities. The test results show that 33% of the 43 randomly purchased food products contained GMO ingredients, while none of the samples had an identifying logo. Among the unlabeled samples containing GMO ingredients were well-known brands including Pringles, Nestlé and VV. 1. Methodology Between January and March 2015, Greenpeace investigators randomly selected 43 food products from major international and domestic supermarket chains (including Walmart, Carrefour, Hualian, Huapu, Wumart and Merrymart), across three first tier cities: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. 18 of the purchased products were made in China, while the other 25 were imported. The samples included seven products made from rice, six from soybean, and 10 from corn. The remaining 20 products contained two or more of these ingredients. The types of sampled products ranged from rice noodles, baby rice cereal and breakfast cereal (such as cornflakes, powdered soymilk and oatmeal), to potato chips and biscuits. Before being sent to a certified independent laboratory for GMO ingredient screening, samples were removed of all packaging, repackaged and assigned with serial numbers. The lab that carried out these tests is DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025-2005 certified, which is a globally recognized accreditation for testing capacity.
Exposing the “Shadow” of GMO food: Greenpeace Investigation on Unlabeled GMO Food Products in China
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