Picture here (l) is Gary Hirshberg, Co-Founder of Stonyfield Farm
Bill Couzens(c) Founder of Less Cancer and President, Tom Sherman (r) Chairman of the Board of Less Cancer. The Less Cancer Speaker Series this year with Gary Hirshberg was on GMO’s and labeling.

 

 

Whole Foods announced that by 2018, all products in U.S. and Canada stores must be labeled if they contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This is the first national grocery store to set a deadline from GMO labeling.

As seen in the Huffington Post “We are putting a stake in the ground on GMO labeling to support the consumer’s right to know,” said Walter Robb, co-CEO of Whole Foods Market, in a press release. “The prevalence of GMOs in the U.S. paired with nonexistent mandatory labeling makes it very difficult for retailers to source non-GMO options and for consumers to choose non-GMO products. Accordingly, we are stepping up our support of certified organic agriculture, where GMOs are not allowed, and we are working together with our supplier partners to grow our non-GMO supply chain to ensure we can continue to provide these choices in the future.”

Gary Hirshberg, the CEO of Stonyfield Yogurt and the chairman and founding partner of the Just Label It campaign, has been a vocal proponent of the move to label GMO foods. In a recent blog for The Huffington Post.

While the US and Canada still have no labeling laws, more than 60 countries do. However, many US states are currently considering mandatory labeling initiatives, like the one in Washington state, where 500,000 citizens signed a petition last year to move the initiative the next step to their state legislature for consideration. Whole Foods Market supports that ballot measure in Washington and hopes it and other such state initiatives will finally lead to one uniform set of rules in support of the consumer’s right to know. There are also efforts that have made GMOs now part of a national conversation. JustLabelIt.org, for instance, has collected over 1.5 million signatures in support of mandatory federal labeling. And while we are encouraged by the many mandatory labeling initiatives, we are committed to moving forward with our own GMO transparency plan now.

For More on labeling follow Just Label it on Facebook.