Many food companies are seeking certification that their products don’t have any genetically modified ingredients, and not just the brands popular in the health food aisle. Even plain Cheerios, that iconic cereal from General Mills, no longer contains GMOs.
“We currently are at over $8.5 billion in annual sales of verified products,” said Megan Westgate, executive director of the Non-GMO Project, the main supplier of non-GMO labels.
To receive the label, a product has to be certified as containing ingredients with less than 1 percent genetic modification. Westgate says that’s a realistic standard, while totally GMO-free is not.
But how does a company get into the non-GMO game? They might call Food Chain ID, a company in Fairfield, Iowa, that can shepherd them through the process. It’s one of the third-party auditors that certifies products for the Non-GMO Project.
Sales of food labeled as “Non-GMO” ballooned to over $3 billion in 2013, according to the Wall Street Journal. Even with the added interest, non-GMO products remain a small fraction of the marketplace. More than 90 percent of corn and soybeans grown in the U.S. contains genetically modified traits.
Read full, original article: What’s Behind the “Non-GMO” Label?
