Left leaning ice cream manufacturer Ben & Jerry’s is one of the most radical companies in the United States, frequently wearing their political views on their sleeves and on their product labels. By 2014, all of Ben & Jerry’s wrappers will be saying that their ice cream products are made entirely without genetically modified organisms.
Less than a week after the March Against Monsanto, which saw millions of people around the world take to the streets in opposition to genetically modified foods, the Vermont-based company has announced that they will remove all GMOs from their products. The Huffington Post reports that currently only 20% of the company’s products contain GMOs, and the company has indicated that, over the next year, these ingredients will be phased out of the company’s products.
The opposition to GMOs stems primarily from concerns about unintended health consequences, the impact of new strains of plants and animals into an already taxed ecosystem, and the business practices of developing, selling, and farming “developed” organisms. More than 40 countries around the world have recently enacted legislation that requires products containing GMOs to be labeled as such. Comparable legislation was recently voted down in California, but other states have GMO labeling legislation in the pipeline.
“We aren’t scientists, we make ice cream, but we do know there are questions about whether GMO technology is truly living up to its promise of making bigger and better food, or whether it’s just simply another way to further industrialize and consolidate our food and agriculture system,” says a “Position” statement on the Ben & Jerry’s website. “There is a growing movement of consumers and health and environmental advocates who are demanding that companies be transparent about whether or not their products contain GMOs.
“Those advocates and citizens are calling for mandatory labeling of all products made with one or more GMO ingredient. We support those calling for transparency and consumer’s right to know and support the push for mandatory labeling. We ought to all have freedom to choose whether or not we want to eat food that has been genetically engineered. We think this is a fundamental right.”
Because a single flavor of ice cream can contain up to 40 ingredients, Ben & Jerry’s said that the removal of GMOs from their entire product line is “complex,” and that the transition may go into 2014.