Retailers Dropping Bio-Foods

JAMES COX / USA Today 4jan00

The USA's two largest natural foods retailers are stripping their shelves of many genetically engineered foods, prompting manufacturers and supermarkets to keep an eye out for a biotech backlash among consumers.

Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Markets have vowed to rid most of their private-label foods of bio-engineered corn, soy, canola oil and other ingredients this year.

''There's an absolute anger among customers that foods are being genetically modified and they don't know what ingredients are in their foods,'' says Margaret Wittenberg, vice president at Whole Foods. The Austin, Texas, retailer has 103 stores in 22 states.

A genetically modified (GM) crop is one implanted with a gene from another organism. Proponents say biotechnology makes crops more resistant to weeds and pests, easier to process and more nutritious. Opponents say GM products may not be safe to plant or eat.

GM ingredients show up in everything from pasta to soft drinks to cooking oil to veggie burgers.

Natural foods retailers and supermarkets say they don't know what percentage of their goods contain GM material. That's because grain suppliers and food manufacturers are not required to label foods as genetically modified. Neither Whole Foods nor Wild Oats can say when their private-label foods will be 100% GM free.

''This is a journey and it's slower than anybody would like,'' says Jim Lee of Wild Oats. The Boulder, Colo., retailer has 110 stores in 22 states. Eden Foods of Clinton, Mich., the nation's largest natural foods manufacturer, certifies that its products are free of genetic modifications. Opposition to genetically modified foods has sparked a consumer revolt in Europe, where thousands of markets have cut back on the products.

No anti-GM groundswell has hit the USA. Whole Foods and Wild Oats ''are very unusual, if not unique. We haven't seen any other stores doing the same,'' says Gene Grabowski, spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America.

Ridding stores of the foods is impractical, he adds. ''There's a word for stores without biotech foods: empty.''

Many supermarket chains, however, want the Food and Drug Administration to set guidelines and require labels.

An estimated 55% of the nation's soybean harvest and 33% of the corn crop in 1999 were GM grains. Those numbers should drop because of European resistance.

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