Sent: Thursday, 14 January 2010 7:09 p.m. Subject: UK
Supermarkets Won't Take NZ Products Fed GM Grass (GE Free NZ
Press release)
UK Supermarkets Won't Take NZ
animal-products Fed GM Grass
Major supermarkets overseas,
including British chains Marks and Spencer's and
Sainsbury's, would shun New Zealand products made using
Genetically Modified grass being developed by AgResearch.
AgResearch's development of GM grass puts New Zealand
food exporters on a collision course with leading
supermarkets and consumers around the world, instead of
investing in other approaches to reducing New Zealand's
greenhouse gas emissions.
UK chain Marks and Spencer's
says "since spring 2002, we've been producing all our
fresh meat and poultry, salmon, shell eggs and fresh milk
from animals fed on a diet based on non-GM cereals and
soya".
"By carefully checking all our manufacturers'
factory processes, we prevent our food mixing with any GM
materials," says Karen Hahm Jones, M&S Customer Services.
Sainsbury's Customer Manager Alan Hurd says "we
don't allow the use of GM crops, ingredients, additives or
derivatives in our own-brand food, drink, pet food, dietary
supplements and floral products."
"GM-grass is an
economic dead-end, certainly for a brand like New Zealand
where quality, naturalness and ethical production really
matter,"says Jon Carapiet spokesman for GE Free NZ (in
food and environment).
"The threat to our food exports
across Asia, Europe, as well UK supermarkets is real", he
says. "This is the wrong way to be using gene science in
New Zealand, and shows the government urgently needs to
intervene on the country's biotechnology strategy to
prevent such mistakes."
AgResearch is set to apply for
trials of GM grass later this year . AgResearch's other
applications to ERMA for a wide range of GM animals closed
for public submissions in December.
References
-
GM grass trial aims to cut cows' gas - Friday Nov 06, 2009
By Eloise Gibson
www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10607618
- Karen Hahm Jones, Marks & Spencer Customer Services
"We also work with a number of laboratories specialising
in GM testing. They analyse the ingredients used in Marks &
Spencer products and animal feeds, and check our food is
non-GM before it goes out on the shelf."
- Alan Hurd
Sainsbury's Customer Manager;
"Sainsbury's stock a
choice of meat and dairy products sourced from livestock
which have been fed a diet of non-GM soya and maize
proteins. These include all our Sainsbury's SO Organic
products, farmed salmon, fresh outdoor reared pork and
21-day matured beef from our Taste the Difference range,
traditional beef, outdoor reared bacon, all our fresh and
frozen chicken and all our eggs from non-caged hens. Our
Farm Promise milk is from dairy cattle fed a non-GM diet".
www.j-sainsbury.co.uk
ENDS