General Mills to Begin Nationwide Labeling of GMOs

Following the inability of the U.S. Congress to agree on a national GMO label law, General Mills announced it will begin labeling GMOs nationwide to comply with a law requiring GMO labeling scheduled to go into effect in Vermont in July.

Company executive vice president and chief operating officer, Jeff Harmening noted in a company blog post that the decision was driven by the impractical nature and higher costs to consumers associated with specific labeling requirements for just one state.

Many players in the food industry have been calling for voluntary GMO labeling requirements – a move that would pre-empt states from enacting a patchwork of differing laws, however in January of this year, Campbell Soup announced that it supported legislation that would call for mandatory labeling, reports ABC News.

Mike Siemienas, a spokesman for General Mills, told the Seattle Times that consumers will begin seeing GMO labeling appear on General Mills products, which include Cheerios, Progresso soups and Yoplait yogurt, “over the next several weeks”, but did not have immediate knowledge of which products would be initially labeled.