Premium ice cream maker Ben + Jerry’s plans to soon pull any genetically modified (GMO) ingredients from its supply lines in both Canada and the U.S.
The Vermont-based company, which makes and sells ice cream in over two dozen countries through major retailers and its chain of ice cream shops, and last year pledged to transition to non-GMO worldwide, recently updated its deadline to “sourcing non-GMO ingredients for all our products everywhere by mid-year 2014.”
In Canada and the U.S., 80 per cent of Ben + Jerry’s ingredients by volume are today sourced non-GMO, while its products made in Europe are already fully non-GMO, the company said.
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“Beginning now, and throughout the coming year, we will transition packaging so that all Ben + Jerry’s products will be labeled with respect to GMO by the end of 2014.”
The company last fall publicly supported Washington state’s proposed I-522 ballot initiative, to require mandatory labelling of foods for GMO content.
“Unfortunately I-522 did not pass, but the work in Vermont is still going full steam ahead converting our own ingredients and flavours to Fairtrade-certified and non-GMO sourced,” the company said in a December report.
The company, which has previously lobbied for labelling of products made from milk produced by cows fed recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH), “is proud to stand with the growing consumer movement for transparency and the right to know what’s in our food supply by supporting mandatory GMO labeling legislation.” — AGCanada.com Network
