Examination of Witnesses (Questions 460-479)
17 DECEMBER 2003
MR RICHARD
ALI AND
MR IAN
BURGESS
Q460 David Wright: You touched on labelling
in your comments to Mr Challen about Europe. Can you say whether
you think the existing regime is strong enough? Do you approve
of the proposed changes? Do you think that the information that
will be put onto products is sufficiently large enough for consumers
to notice it when they are plucking products off the shelves?
Do you think that the public in general considers that the labelling
process is rigorous enough?
Mr Ali: The first thing to say
is that we felt the European regulations were catching up with
where retailers already were. For British retailers, therefore,
it was not the most major mind-blowing change going. That is the
first part.. If you now have GM product, or a product which was
produced from GM, under the regulations you will have to label.
For own-brand products, because it does not contain GM, there
would be no change on the label. We really did think that Europe
was catching up with the status quo on this one. What we were
concerned about in the regulations was making sure that British
retailers had legal certainty to be able to carry out their obligations
under the legislation.
Q461 David Wright: The Co-op have put
out quite a bit recently about the status of their own-brand products.
Did you notice any lift in sales following your declaration of
GM-free status?
Mr Burgess: We started the process
of removal of GM constituents from our own-brand products in 1999
and we achieved the removal. In terms of uplifts of sales, I cannot
really comment, I am afraid. I do not know whether we noticed
a significant uplift or not. We were really delivering what our
membership had asked us to deliver. So I suppose the converse
may be true, in that if we had not delivered that we might have
seen a decline in sales.
Q462 David Wright: Related to your previous
comments, about GM products as it were sneaking into the food
preparation chain, do you think the public have unrealistic expectations
about the fact that further down the preparation chain—or
indeed down the food chain, in relation to livestock—GM
product has not been used? Are the public unrealistic?
Mr Ali: I think that I should
go back a step. What retailers have sought to do on the whole
GM debate is speak to their individual customers. They have a
variety of mechanisms to do that: whether it is in store or whether
it is their focus groups; by placing products on the shelves;
and, when "Franken-foods" happened, by quickly removing
certain products from the shelves! What you do see all along,
however, is that there is a point at which for some consumers
price becomes an issue. Price is a characteristic of product.
For instance, a ready-meal lasagne—that will be non-GM.
However, at certain points in the animal feed chain, to remove
GM would result in an increase in price, which for some customers
would be unacceptable. Some customers wish to buy animal products
which have not been fed on GM. Whether that is organic, whether
that is free range, whether that is stated to be "Not fed
on GM material"—those products are basically aimed
at customers who wish to pay that premium, if there is a premium.
All customers are individuals, and retailers try to match the
products they put on their shelves with the individuals. There
is more concern about GM in the frozen lasagne than there is about
animals which have been fed on GM but, across the board, retailers
have sought and are seeking to remove GM from animal feed where
it has proved practical and also cost-effective—because
there are customers out there to whom price is number one.
Mr Burgess: It is also worth noting
the outcomes of the GM juries, carried out earlier this year,
where one of the concerns highlighted by the jury members was
the feeding of GM foods to animals. It is an issue that certain
sectors of the population are concerned with.
Q463 Gregory Barker: On the issue of
labelling, when is GM present and when is it not present? At the
moment, it is only down to 0.9% of content, I believe. Yet there
are scientists who will tell you that it is traceable down to
0.1% of content. A lot of people who will be buying food that
they believe to be GM-free would be quite disturbed if they realised
that something advertised as "GM-free"—or, on
a negative basis, where their attention was not drawn to the fact
that it did contain GMOs—actually contained millions and
millions of GMOs. What is your view on whether government should
be drawing the line in terms of full disclosure of GMO content?
Mr Ali: As an industry body, we
supported the 0.9. The reason we supported the 0.9 was, first
of all, we do not support labelling where it says "GM-free"—for
those very reasons. We support the labelling of product which
says "Non-GM". If we had gone down the path of scientific
testing—so 0.1 or even lower than 0.1, because in two years'
time who knows what analysis can find—effectively you would
be labelling everything, or a huge number of items, as "This
contains GM". If you hit that level, are you able at that
stage to provide consumer choice? That is why we supported the
0.9. We also supported the 0.9 for very practical reasons. That
was because, if this product contains more than 0.9% GM at a shelf
level, you can then trace that back down the supply chain and,
using various risk analysis techniques and hazard analysis, you
can work out at each stage where contamination from GM may occur,
and you can minimise those risks. What retailers are doing, and
what the supply chain is doing, is aiming not for 0.9 but for
no contamination at all. However, you have to work within a scientific
risk assessment system—which says that, for instance if
you are transporting soya beans, if the barge or the boat or the
elevator has had GM soya beans on before, you could get contamination.
Therefore, it is all about making sure that you wash out the barge
and that it is properly cleaned, and you engage in these procedures
to try to make sure that you have identity preservation throughout
the system. That is one of the reasons why we supported the 0.9.
Gregory Barker: To say that to have it
lower than 0.9 would be to deny consumer choice is a nonsense,
is it not? Are you not just saying that consumer choice is a fallacy?
There is no consumer choice, because most products actually contain
GM and, in order to have a pretence at consumer choice, you have
to have a higher threshold at which GM is disclosed. The reality
is that there is a lot less choice than would appear to be the
case, because you have this 0.9 threshold. If you had it down
where it could genuinely be traced—
Q464 David Wright: As a follow-on to
that, I do not think that the public understand the difference
between the GM-free/non-GM label. I think that was the phrase
you used. If I went to a supermarket, I would not know what the
difference was, even having worked with this Committee on this
issue. I cannot say that I would go in and understand the difference
between the terminology you have used this afternoon.
Mr Ali: Perhaps I may take those
two questions together. The point about consumer choice is, yes,
you can probably get GM-free if you wish. At the moment we are
really talking about soya and maize. If there were increased GM
products on the marketplace—if GM wheat or GM oilseed rape
were grown, or whatever it might be—the costs of making
sure you have 100% GM-free in the years to come may increase significantly.
Gregory Barker: That is a different question
to saying whether or not it is GM-free. You are simply saying,
"We can't afford to tell you.".
Q465 Chairman: If I can pile in here
as well—it is an extraordinary thing that you have just
said. Up until very recently, throughout the entire history of
mankind as far as we are aware, all food has been GM-free. It
seems to me that your industry has participated in a most extraordinary
revolution, from the norm to something which, without being pejorative
about it, is abnormal, and that the public are not being given
the full story.
Mr Ali: I am not sure that is
actually the case. What we are saying is, if you set it at the
limit of scientific detection to say whether or not it is GM—whatever
words you wish to use—if you have any GM in that product,
if I understand what you are saying, then you are saying that
it should be labelled as GM.
Q466 Gregory Barker: Or "Uncertain".
Mr Ali: Or "May contain".
Q467 Gregory Barker: "May contain
. . .", yes.
Mr Ali: I have to say that it
was not the European food industry that made these rules. The
European Parliament and Commission sat down and said to the consumers,
to the population, to MPs, to MEPs, "Which is most useful?".
Q468 Gregory Barker: I do not remember
them asking me!
Mr Ali: Obviously the European
Parliament did not—but the reason was because people said,
"May contain" is not useful. The European Consumers
Association said, "`May contain' is not useful to us. We
don't want everything labelled `May contain' because we think
that, therefore, to protect themselves because of legal certainty,
everybody will label everything `May contain'". We are not
aiming for that 0.9 limit. That provides the legal certainty,
the buffer, by which contamination may occur in the food chain.
I have explained regarding soya beans and GM maize, on those bulk
commodity crops, where it might happen—because it might
happen—or it might happen in a food processing facility,
or in a farmers' market, because someone had not washed their
hands properly. There are a great many entry points within a food
chain, within an open supply chain—and even in a closed
supply chain—at which that might happen.
Q469 Gregory Barker: But if it was something
else—if it was listeria—you would not just say, "This
is listeria-free" if it had 0.9 listeria in it, would you?
You would not say, "This is botulism-free" if it had
0.9 botulism in it. I am not saying that it is comparable with
those things. Nevertheless, it is a bit like being half-pregnant:
either it is or it is not. The fact that you have drawn a neat
line is purely arbitrary; it is not scientific.
Mr Ali: This legislation on labelling
was never introduced for either environmental safety reasons or,
more importantly, for food safety reasons.
Q470 Gregory Barker: We are not talking
about the safety. We are simply talking about the veracity of
the information contained on the labelling—the veracity
of the labelling.
Mr Ali: You may disagree, you
may have wanted a different limit, but having legislation to provide
an informative label and having legislation that is designed to
make sure that harmful organisms are not in the food are completely
different.
Q471 Gregory Barker: All I am saying
is that you will put labels onto food that contains GM which say
that it does not contain GM, and you know it.
Mr Ali: No, it does not say that
it does not contain GM. It abides by the legislation. The legislation
is very clear and sets limits. We supported the 0.9% because we
believed that customers did not want to have on every single food
product—just in case, because of the legal certainty—the
words "May contain".
Q472 Paul Flynn: On this question, was
it not a factor in settling on the 0.9% limit that it was impossible
to separate the GM soya that had been contaminated from all the
rest of the soya, and it was a practical legal level that they
put on because there was no way of guaranteeing that these were
GM-free at that time?
Mr Ali: It used to be 1%. The
reason for the 0.9% limit is because, if you start off from a
farm level on a commodity crop and you move through the system,
you can do some fairly elaborate scientific analysis which, when
you have added in safety buffers, et cetera, will arrive at figures.
Generally, retailers and the supply chain aim much lower than
that 0.9% as a maximum. Certain systems, if you get to 0.5 or
0.6, whatever it might be—that starts ringing alarm bells.
But 0.9% is in there because it means that you can deliver—and
I am sorry to use this phrase again—this consistently non-GM
product. It is that consistency and legal certainty. If we got
to the point where you were having to reject every single load,
the food industry will effectively start to label everything as
GM, because you have this huge uncertainty. No one wants to be
appearing at the magistrates' court every week.
Q473 Paul Flynn: It seems to be an answer
to the question of the liability. Are the possibility of liability
and the problems arising in the future a main factor in your decision
to be reluctant to market GM food—not to market it in your
own products?
Mr Ali: As regards food safety?
Q474 Paul Flynn: Yes.
Mr Ali: As regards food safety,
certainly within the UK system we are required to place safe food
on the market, but if government has approved a product—at
the moment the liability is on the approval process.
Q475 Paul Flynn: You would be satisfied
that you are protected by that? You would not look for another
regime to give you more protection, if GM products do become more
widely available?
Mr Ali: Each product has to go
through the existing approval process. We do not have a view,
more than to say that we want a system which conforms with international
norms—so OECD guidelines.
Q476 Paul Flynn: There was some confusion
about what exactly you were saying in a previous answer about
when SCIMAC presented us with this survey which said that there
were 13% in favour and 13% against, and the rest of the shoppers
were neutral. Do you believe that is the case? There have been
various other investigations of public opinion that have suggested
that, in general terms, the public are antagonistic to GM foods.
Mr Ali: This is where I do not
believe there is necessarily any dichotomy, believe it or not,
between a population of MPs, 70% of whom say "We don't want
X" but only 30% look for the information when they go shopping.
You are asked your opinion directly, "Do you want GM or not?",
and 70%, or whatever it might be, say no. Then you ask a different
question, "Do you look for labels which say whether the product
is GM or not?", and I think that it was 28% in total, half
of whom said they looked for positive and half said they looked
for negative.
Q477 Paul Flynn: But 50% does not seem
to be a large enough group of shoppers to make you reach a conclusion
that you have none in your own-brand products.
Mr Ali: Those are the people who
actively go out and seek; but there are three times as many, 70%,
who say, "We don't want". You have these different categories
of consumers. You have a very concerned consumer, who will go
out and read all the labels. You have other consumers who will
read the labels occasionally. You have other consumers who never
read the labels. You have different levels of concern amongst
consumers. I think that all we are seeing is that 70% of consumers
are concerned about GM, but only 26% read the labels.
Mr Burgess: If it is of use, I
could illustrate those points with some findings from a recent
survey that we carried out amongst our members and customers.
When we asked them would they knowingly buy food containing GM
ingredients, 79% said that they would not knowingly buy food that
contained a GM ingredient. That bears out the figures that Richard
was quoting.
Q478 Chairman: Did you ask them that
irrespective of cost, the price of the goods?
Mr Burgess: Yes, it was just the
question.
Q479 Chairman: What happens when you
factor in price to a question like that?
Mr Burgess: Then, as has been
said previously, there may be a differentiation between the customers,
because there are customers within the retail business that are
very price sensitive. For animal products, for example, if you
removed the GM from that supply chain, there would potentially
be a cost increase and so you could disadvantage that particular
customer base.
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