The GMO labeling debate just shifted because one giant food company wants all SpaghettiOs to be treated equally.
Campbell Soup, maker of the circular pasta treat, broke ranks with the rest of Big Food on Friday, announcing that it will disclose which of its products contain genetically modified ingredients. It also now favors a federal law requiring similar information on all food products.
Campbell remains a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which wants labeling to remain voluntary, but it will no longer participate in the group’s lobbying efforts on the labeling issue.
That’s a significant defection. Carmen Bain, an assistant professor of sociology at Iowa State University, calls it “potentially a game-changer.”
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Campbell’s statements, she said, undermine two pillars of the food industry’s case against labeling laws. The industry argues that GMO disclosure would be expensive and that required language should focus on safety and health.
Campbell says adding a few words to its labels needn’t be costly. And, while it stands by the safety of genetically modified ingredients, it says that “consumers have the right to know what’s in their food.”
That’s a phrase that, until recently, we usually heard from anti-GMO campaigners. Arguments about transparency carry a lot of weight with consumers, Bain said, “and this is how companies want to be perceived as well. The proponents of GMOs want to keep bringing it back to questions of science, but I don’t think they’re going to win with that argument.”
Campbell also had a practical problem. Vermont passed a law that will require genetically modified ingredients to be disclosed, beginning in July. The food industry has pressed for a federal law to pre-empt such state requirements, but its efforts have gone nowhere in Congress.
That led to the SpaghettiOs dichotomy. Products containing meat are exempt from the Vermont law because they’re regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. So Campbell had to design a label saying “partially produced with genetic engineering” for regular SpaghettiOs, but not for the variety with meatballs.
Campbell didn’t want to confuse consumers, so it will label everything. Three-quarters of the company’s products contain ingredients that come from genetically modified crops such as corn, soybeans and sugar beets.
The rest of the food industry — along with agricultural companies like Monsanto — will continue to argue for a federal pre-emption law. They do, by the way, have science on their side.
“Labeling should be reserved for something that’s materially different in the way it affects food safety,” says Alison Van Eenennaamm, a geneticist at the University of California Davis who co-authored a paper on the issue for the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology. “You are going to impose a large cost on the entire food production chain that is not based on science.”
Van Eenennaamm said she fears that anti-GMO groups will use labeling information to pressure foodmakers. “What I think will happen is there will be targeted boycotts of particular products, forcing those companies to source non-GMO ingredients,” she said.
The latter step, segregating crops that are genetically modified from those that are not, is where the expense comes in.
Congress, however, wasn’t responding to scientific arguments even when the food industry presented a united front. Now that the maker of tomato soup and Goldfish crackers has switched sides, Big Food’s fight against mandatory labeling will be much harder.

