The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has proposed how companies should alert consumers to the presence of genetically modified (GMO) ingredients in products. One major change is the agency will let companies use “bioengineered food” for GMO because it thinks bioengineered “adequately describes food products of the technology that Congress intended to be within the scope of” the law. – NACS Daily
On May 4, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) issued a proposed rule – the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard – requiring some form of disclosure of biotech ingredients on food packaging. The proposed rule has a 60-day comment period, with a submission deadline of July 3, 2018.
One of the exemptions includes food served in a restaurant or similar retail establishment. FMI is pleased to see that the Agency has developed a definition of “food service establishment” that is consistent with other labeling programs.
The proposed rule sets out three options for threshold levels of bioengineered ingredients that would trigger the labeling requirements, which can be summarized as
1) no more than 5% of a particular ingredient by weight,
2) no more than 0.9% of a particular ingredient by weight, or
3) no more than 5% of the total weight of a product.
Regarding the method of required disclosure, USDA opted for an “all of the above” approach, allowing companies to choose from the following options: on-package text (i.e. label), symbol, electronic or digital link, and/or text message options.
AMS sets Jan. 1, 2020, as the date for compliance for large food companies, and a year later for small companies, defined as those with less than $10 million in annual receipts. – The Food Marketing Institute