To: Robert Edwards, CEO of Safeway
Safeway CEO: Label GMOs
OSPIRG
Consumers have a right to make informed choices about the food we eat. Yet it's usually impossible to know if our food contains genetically modified foods (GMOs).
We urge you to support your customers' right to know what's in their food by labeling GMO ingredients found in Safeway store-brand products.
We urge you to support your customers' right to know what's in their food by labeling GMO ingredients found in Safeway store-brand products.
Why is this important?
When I’m buying food at Safeway, I should be able to make an informed choice. But Safeway doesn’t label its products that contain genetically modified ingredients, or GMOs.
While more research needs to be done to understand the full impact of GMOs, they are not without risk. For example, GMOs are responsible for a 400 million pound increase in pesticide use in the United States between 1995 and 2011 [1]. And GMOs don’t undergo independent safety testing before they’re allowed onto the market, which the American Medical Association recommends [2].
It’s time for Safeway to follow the lead of other grocery chains like Whole Foods and label GMOs in its store-brand products so that we can decide for ourselves whether or not we want to eat GMOs.
[1] http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24/abstract.
[2] https://download.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/csaph/x-pub/a12-csaph2-bioengineeredfoods.pdf
While more research needs to be done to understand the full impact of GMOs, they are not without risk. For example, GMOs are responsible for a 400 million pound increase in pesticide use in the United States between 1995 and 2011 [1]. And GMOs don’t undergo independent safety testing before they’re allowed onto the market, which the American Medical Association recommends [2].
It’s time for Safeway to follow the lead of other grocery chains like Whole Foods and label GMOs in its store-brand products so that we can decide for ourselves whether or not we want to eat GMOs.
[1] http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24/abstract.
[2] https://download.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/csaph/x-pub/a12-csaph2-bioengineeredfoods.pdf