There are basically no GMO crops being grown in the EU (with the notable exeption of Spain and few other countries where Bt corn is grown since 1998). Most of the GMO imports ends up in animal feed. If you look hard you can sometimes find soybean oil made of GM soybean. In the US there is no separation between non-GM and GM production, and most of the processed food contain either soy or corn products or both such as protein, oil, lecithin, high fructose syrup, starch etc. Since more than 90 of the soybean and about 80 % of corn grown in the US is GMO, it is reasonable to expect that basically all processed food contain more or less GM ingredients. That is the simple answer.

There is a little detail which is not commonly communicated in the media. The EU labeling rules do not cover recombinant enzymes used as processing aids, which are very common in EU. So if you want to be strict about labelling also products such as chees should be labelled. However these enyzmes and other additives are made by European companies and thus there is no political will to label them.

I agree with Tomas and would add that many US companies selling processed food products into the EU will source non-GE commodities to use in the manufacturing of the exported product.

There is regulation on the US regarding GMOs, what happened is that many products have already passed through the regulatory channels and have been de-regulated. These de-regulated products are the ones reaching the consumers.

You are wrong. The EU has allowed GMO and so, they are cropped in most of the EU countries.

Its ridiculous to think that the US sell to EU lots of GMO,as we can grow them and we do here. Also considering that they have no regulation, it would make more sense think that the EU exports more GM to USA than they do to EU.

However, thats not the question.

I am not argueing about GMO pros and con, or who sells and buy, or where are cropped...

Can any provide a EU food label that indicates GMO content?

According to the "EU register of authorised GMOs" the European Union has authorised importation of 48 GMOs. Most of these are for animal feed imports or for feed and food processing.

Can I please have an answer to my question, concentrate in the question and dont make an endless debate which Im not interested in?

Can any of you provide an EU food label that indicates GMO content?

Thank you!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/06/business/gmo-label-on-kraft-mac-cheese-box-raises-alarm.html?_r=0

I did an image search of " EU GMO label" and found loads

http://www.bilaterals.org/?will-european-requirements-for

This one is a little more straight forward.

Dear Gillian: GMO Wheat is not legal in the EU, neither its trading, exporting or croping. Of course finding GMO wheat causes an alarm.

http://ec.europa.eu/food/dyna/gm_register/index_en.cfm

On the second example, is the ONLY example that curiously Google can find (I did that search too before obviously).

ONE label is not representative for the 60 to 80% market that is calculated in the US.

Would you agree that?

So where are all those really worried customers -about GMO- that should have framed their products to aware their friends, groups and pages?....

Could you explain that?

Or can you explain the fact that despite I know pretty much about food labelling, have not seen ever a single product in Spain wich is GMO?

Or are you suggesting that all GMO crops in the EU are sold to the US where they dont label them (they dont have to), and at the same time the US sells to the EU their GMO without labelling as they dont have to?

Yago -as for your second question on providing a GMO food label - you can find some labels here. http://elemiah.pl/blog/2011/08/01/zywnosc-genetyczna-gmo/

But your original question was why they are no (or almost ) GM labeled products on the market in the EU. Most of the time when I do grocery shopping I do read the labels and I have to say I havent seen oil made of GM soybean for couple of years now. Or any other product containg GM ingredients. I think that consumers just didnt like the products/labels and thus they were taken off the shelves. The market might be different in different countries but. In some countries such as Austria or Germany you can frequently see products labeled as GM free as a form of advertisement. Sometimes its even on products which dont have any GM alternatives on the market such as apples or pears. I also have to reply on your comment regarding GMO being cropped in most EU countries. EU has approved just two GMO crops for cultivation (Bt corn MON810 and Amflora potatoes), only the former is still being used in EU. Bt corn is grown on only about 1.3% of total corn hectares in the EU (data from 2012), last year the area went down again in most countries. All the other authorisations are for import only. see also http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-952_en.htm

Labelling in the EU is a difficult topic, because there are all sorts of things that need not to be labelled.

Some information about labelling, including some pictures, can be found here:

http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/regulation/labelling/92.gmo_labelling_labelled_goods.html

There are some products in the market, but you need to search and pay close attention. Students in a seminar that I gave when still at the RWTH Aachen University were successful in Dutch supermarkets, but there were only limited products. It is even harder in German supermarkets. If some products crops up there is usually an outrage, as occurred with candy bars imported from the US (which in some cases where not labelled as they should have been; in some cases they were, making them an ideal target for action).

Other than that, I totally second Tomas' answers! Nothing to add there at the moment.

You are right. The main difference are the EU vs. US regulations. In the EU an approved GMO used for food or feed needs to be labeled for an informed cosumer choice if the content (concerning the ingredient) is above 0,9%. Polls conducted showed that the majority of European consumers are not interested in GM food. Therefore food industry avoid to place GM products on the market.

So it is not the case that the EU law is ignored. There is ongoing trade irritation between US and EU in the food sector, since some corn or soy GMOs farmed in the US are not authorised yet in the EU.

I heard that in the US an increasing demand in some states for labeling of GM food .

Another comment: I don't think that 60-80% of the food in the US is produced with "100%" GMO. Maize starch, soy lecithin etc. are used very often as ingredient and thus it the case, that probably 60-80% of the food products contain ingredients that are GM.

Interestingly, in the EU most of the feedstuff used for meat production is or contain GM (soy form South America etc.). These animal products need no labeling and are of course accepted and consumed in the EU.

Dear Tomas: please check here the EU Register of authorised GMOs:

http://ec.europa.eu/food/dyna/gm_register/index_en.cfm.

As for your label links, are interesting but...dont find them again representative of the Spanish market wich I know, or the UK market wich I also know.

Once again, Im not talkking about product lablelled as "GMO Free" Im asking exactly about with GMO, as US stimates 60-80% of their food is GMO, we should expect a similar figure in EU foods.

Regulation regarding some matters, by the way, ar not handled by countries but for EU normatives common to the whole Union.

The 60-80% is a calculated figure from US Mass media but as US has no regulation, remains a mistery.

However, from only maize and soy you can get any kind of sugars and proteins that are added to most of foods. Obviously creating GMO was done with species that can be used in multiple ways.

How is it possible that the US estimates that 60-80% of their food is GMO, while in the EU there are no GMOs, a part from ...10 in Check Republic?

If that regulation was in place and being applicated, at least 50% of our food would be labelled as GMO.

I bet is not difficult to check a product for GMO wif working a laboratory...where Im not unfortunately.

So far we have some GMO examples from Czech Republic and Neederlands, like...15-20.

Would you think that is representative for the whole EU?

Do you believe all other countries simply has no GMO in their markets?

Some interesting data. http://www.cfr.org/agricultural-policy/regulation-gmos-europe-united-states-case-study-contemporary-european-regulatory-politics/p8688.

"By contrast, 61% of Britains stated that they do not wish to eat transgenic food, while 76% of French expressed opposition to it. [59] By the late 1990s, trans-Atlantic differences in public attitudes had become more striking. While 65% of consumers in Sweden, 69% in Austria, 50% in Germany and 39 % in the United Kingdom regarded genetic modification as a serious risk in food products, only 14% of Americans did so.[60]"

Im sorry but the only explanation I can find is: Europeans dont want it? lets not labell it.

The answer, as always, depends on the question asked. If not asked specifically for GMOs, people tend to give other things they see as problems or risks within the food chain. See for example:

http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/news-events/news/2014/140217-public-attitudes-tracker-results.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=February+2014+newsletter&utm_content=February+2014+newsletter+CID_30e200711fae251f32e43c2fd6bf333c&utm_source=Food

Your explanation does not make sense in my view, since you seem to imply that GMO ingredients are everywhere, just not labelled in order to avoid a fuss being made.

Sure, some ingredients cannot be shown by analysis to be derived from a GMO (like sugar, syrup, oil) because nothing in the end-product could betray the GMO source (not enough protein/DNA to make a robust detection possible).

But if through any way a GMO source would be discovered, imagine the huge bad publicity/consumer trust fallout! No company would dare to risk such a move.

On the other hand: putting a GMO label on a product, even to play it safe, would probably cast the end of that product in the market. That seems to be certain. So either way, companies face problems.

They surely use GM technologies/products when in the end-product it does not need to be labelled - which is why GMO derived animal feed is used throughout Europe. But it is another thing to have GMO sweet corn in a can...

There appears to be a mis-conception in the question that the USA does not have regulations for GMO's. This is correct in the legal sense , but I would not like contributors to think that the USA does not have regulations at all for GMO products, it just regulates them under existing legislation and has done since 1986, when the Office of Science and Technology Policy issued it's declaration that there were no new risks from GMO's and they should be regulated on the product and its intended use. The EU conversely sought to regulate the technology and not the products.

Stefan: So if GMO sugars can not be detected...why would we raise a law?

Dont you think that if that was true, it would be impossible to create a legislation for GMO?

In any case, the EU stablish along the GMO law in 2003, the obligation for all food companies to allow products and their ingredients its traceability.

So a company that uses corn must have their corn labelled indicating if its or if its not GMO, their procedure, date, etc etc.

That makes impossible for the food company ignoring the ingredients origin and source.

Camilla: having in place a normative from 1986 which applies to GMO is ridiculous, as in 1986 there were no GMO or they were still in previous stages. Even a law like european, from 2003, is old when talking about GMO.

REGULATION (EC) No 1829/2003 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 22 September 2003 on genetically modified food and feed:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:2003R1829:20080410:EN:HTML

Yago, it may be that you have a misconception about how the GMOs are produced and how they actually work? If a plant is genetically modified to produce more sugar (to follow the example set here) most probably you will not be able to detect anything related to the transgene or cisgene that was used after the product is processed and is turned into a commercial commodity. At that point, it doesn't matter its origin, sugar is sugar.

Yago, the point was in the USA they decided in 1986 that all existing laws for products would cover potential GMO's and no specific GMO legislation is enacted. This is still the situation today - existing laws such as the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act cover GM food. Those laws are updated from time to time under the Code of Federal Regulations.

For explanation of the EU perspective:

labeling does not require the detection of a GMO, e.g. its DNA. There is a another European Regulation which 1830/2003 which stipulates the traceability of GMOs. If a food or ingredients are produced from raw materials that are coming from GMO plants they have to be labeled along the whole processing food chain, irrespective of the detectability of GM DNA. The principle for labeling is from farm to fork.

Official and private food control laboratories are mainly testing the raw materials used in the productions chain. Several thousands of samples are analysed per year and thereby it is secured that labeling rules in the EU are met.

The regulation of GMOs in the EU is based on the PROCESS of their creation, just as Camille said. Meaning that certain techniques used to create a phenotype have the consequence of the plant being regulated (and labeled) as a GMO, while another technique to create the same phenotype is not. On the genetic basis, it gets even more complicated, as there are some novel techniques that lead to changes in the genome that could in the same form also be the product of natural processes - i.e. they would be indistinguishable from products derived from another technology. Only the knowledge that a certain technology was used in their creation can then be used to mark them as a GMO.

Which is a totally ridiculous and non-science based regulatory environment.

Especially when considering that it is the phenotype and its interaction with the environment that poses the risk, and not how the underlying genomic change was created.

Our labelling law is even more problematic, given thresholds, detection limites, percentages and in the case of animals fed with GMO derived feed even timing of that feeding. All of these have consequences for labelling, which makes it a very complex issue and a hot political topic.

José: Im aware. Sugar is sugar. But there is an EU regulation that makes mandatory to indicate if that sugar comes from a GMO plant or not and the full ingredients traceability.

As Lutz says, "The principle for labeling is from farm to fork".

Are we declaring that? No. Why? I dont know. Im trying to find out with your help.

I dont want to discuss any other matter just becase we could make an online meeting for months and don´t get anywhere. Everyone has his opinion.

But as we have an EU regulation, Im trying to understand why having a GMO regulation is impossible to find more than 50 or 100... or 500 products in the whole EU that are GMO.

Lutz declares: "it is secured that labeling rules in the EU are met". Then please let me repeat the same question: How likely is to find a GMO in the EU, considering that the US estimate that 60-80% of their food is GMO?

Is it 0% (or 0,1% as we have already like 20 labels) the amount of GMO manufactured and sold in the EU?

Why do we produce GMO then? Considering that the US is the main GMO producer... how likely is that the EU is exporting their whole production to the US?

Most GMO corn that is produced in the EU goes either to the animals on-farm or to the production of biogas plants. That is what I heard from German farmers and that is what people in Spain told me. The same will be true for the Czech Republic and Poland, where only limited cultivation takes place - although I do not have current numbers on hectarage.

As an side: some years ago I heard people from some Eastern European countries say that in Austria farmers would plant MON810: they knew that no one was testing for the presence of this crop, which meant that they could safely drive over the border to Hungary or the Czech Republic, buy the seed there, bring it back home and plant it. May be true, but I do not have hard evidence to back this up. If indeed that are no controls in Austria, this might be a realistic scenario.

Animal feed- EU only grows GMO food for animal feed. Period. Animal feed for the EU market and the US market. Not for human consumption therefor no labels needed.

Yago,

you will be surprised or not:

Testing for GMO presence in food, feed and seed is a very intensive business. And be aware that all EU member countries are inspected by the Food and Vetererinay Office of the EU Commission at least every 5 years concerning their implementation and performance of the GMO control system.

See for 2006 the results of the inspection in Germany:

http://ec.europa.eu/food/fvo/rep_details_en.cfm?rep_id=2849

See for 2011 for Germany:

http://ec.europa.eu/food/fvo/rep_details_en.cfm?rep_id=1525

Concerning the speculations about illegal cultivation in Austria: They have a very stringent system for seed control established. In Germany 10% of all seed lots placed on the seed market are GMO-tested by taking random samples. Same is true I assume for Austria.

MON810 cultivation in the EU (to my knowledge mainly in Spain) is for feed and biogas. The MON810 hybrid lines are not breeded for food consumption.

There is no difference in the EU between food and feed: Animal feed needs to be labeled in the EU as well.

Yago from your questions it seems apparent that you are convinced, that GMO crops are as common on European fields as they are in the USA or South America and that there are huge piles of EU-made GM-commodities somehow smuggled to the shelves of grocery stores. This just isn't true. The total area of commercial GM production in 2012 was as follows: Spain (116,306 hectares), Portugal (9,278 hectares), Czech Republic (3,052 hectares), Romania (217 hectares) and Slovakia (189 hectares). And 90% of that is used as feed or for biogas production directly on the farm where it was grown. The farm-to-fork tracebility makes it easier for farmers to use it on site than to sell it with all the required paperwork. Note that the whole production chain must start within the EU for you to be able to trace it to the farm. The commodities imported overseas and used for animal feed have no such traceability. It is difficult to implement traceability to individual farmers on Panamax sized vessel full of soybean.

Thank you for the link to the list of authorized varieties (GMO compass). It is important to carefully inspect the 3rd column (Authorized use). All plant varieties except Mon810 and potato with silenced GBSS are only authorised for food and feed processing , no cultivation is allowed. Dont you think that it might explain (together with labeling requirements) the difference between market share of food containing GM ingredients in the US (60-80%) and EU (

And as a side note - I did some grocery shopping today and checked again for GM ingredients on labels. I could find two different brands of vegetable oil with preprinted labels saying that it can either contain canola oil, soybean oil from GM variety or sunflower oil and that the actual content is marked by a letter on the stopper. this time all the bottles were non-GM canola. I guess that the public perception just doesnt make it a good bussiness decission to sell food with GM ingredients in most of European markets.

Well my point is quite clear.

I can not believe that there are only 6 products in the whole EU that contains GMO, and no other products.

That is completely impossible and completely unbelievable.

So the question is not really a question.

Is the EU labelling according to the EU law?

Id say no flipping way they do.

And that is a huge problem.

Beacuse we have a legislation quite precise, wich is being completely ignored.

Dear Yago,

as regards food products sold directly to consumers by retail shops a surprisingly low number of products - at least in Austria - contains GMOs and is labelled accordingly.

This is mostly due to quite strict QC procedures implemented by producers/retailers specifically for production of packaged food products. Additionally this is confirmed by tests of such products conducted by authorities to check on the implementation of labelling rules. Since not all products on the market can be checked analytically official sampling is focused on products with a significant chance to contain GM ingredients.

Thanks also to Lutz for setting the record straight for infos on national seed monitoring.

Below find some specifics on the system in place in Austria and on results of the quite comprehensive testing regime for seedstuffs.

To do what Stefan Rauschen speculated on, i.e. to aquire GM seed and plant in Austria, would need a fair amount of efforts and criminal energy. Additionally I do not think it would be that easy to infuse substantial amounts of such produce into standard channels of food production&marketing without getting uncovered.

The national seed program constitutes an integrated quality system and comprises a system of random sampling performed by the Federal Office for Food Safety on one hand, and a systematically implemented self-monitoring system by the seed companies on the other hand. Due to the zero tolerance policy for seed certified and/or marketed in Austria, seed companies are requested to implement a comprehensive quality-control system during the whole seed production cycle. This encompasses the GM adventitious presence testing of the Basic or Pre-Basic seed utilized in field production, the strict removal of outcrosses (potential risk of GM-contamination) in the field, cleaning measures during seed processing and GM-testing of the final/certified seed.

Finally the governmental monitoring system of the Federal Office for Food Safety evaluates the effectiveness of the self-control system on the one hand by auditing the seed producers/suppliers to check the practice of implementation of QM standards (traceability from field to seed package) and on the other hand by testing for GM-material of seed lots which are marketed or used in seed production in Austria and further GM-testing of outcross plants found in seed production fields or in the national post control plots (details see table below).

Since 2001 this governmental monitoring program is ongoing.

TABLE1

*1) GM-positiv maize seed lot: quantification result: 0,12% of MON-00603-6 DNA in relation to total maize DNA; the seed lot was not placed on the market in Austria

In all other cases of GM-positive results (≤ 0,1%) during control examination of the Federal Office of Food Safety (Institute for Seed), analytical reports confirming absence of GMOs according to the Methods for Seed and Varieties were submitted by the applicants for seed certification or alternatively by the seed marketing organisation. Thus, the affected seed lots met the requirements of the Ordinance on Genetically Modified Seed.

Marc, that comment does not add anything new. I am talking in general about EU, not only Austria. I have not even talked about Spain where I live, and where I have never find or see any GMO product.

But im not talking about Spain or Austria. The EU has raised a law in 2003 for all country members.

The only thing Im interested in is if all couontries in the EU are declaring GMO.

Once again, I kindly ask you to explain how is it possible to have only 6 GMO rpducts in the EU market, while US counts thousands.

Obviusly, if the EU produces GMO is for using them, and we produce them.

Or are we exporting all our GMO?

How likely is to find a GMO in the EU, considering that the US estimate that 60-80% of their food is GMO?

EU GMO labelling law stablish clearly that must be done from farm to fork.

Dear Yago, it is difficult to argue with this statement. It might be unbelievable, but I dont consider it impossible. For me its much easier to believe that there are just a few GMO containing products on the shelves of grocery stores (not exactly the same thing as 6 products in the EU) than to belive that it is common to use GM ingrediences in human food processing without labeling and without outcry from regulators and environmental groups such as Greenpeace. But you are free to believe in what you want to believe.

@Michael Eckerstorfer: effort for sure, although I guess the effort spent needs to be compared to the benefit.

Following scenario: A farmer drives over the border, buys MON810 seeds, brings them over the border and plants these on his fields. He then uses the maize for feeding it on-farm to his cattle or putting it into a biogas plant.

Will he be caught by some sort of state run monitoring? Where are the critical control points where he might be caught?

Going over the border within the EU is no problem. Using the corn on his on farm will mean that his products will not be subjected to test for those products that get into the food or commodity chain elsewhere.

So as long nobody goes onto the field and really tests the plants growing there, that will probably never ever see the light of day.

In India, farmers were planting Bt-cotton long before that was authorized. The same is now probably going on with Bt-eggplant. And nobody knows what happened with the Bt-rice developed in Iran.

We do have strong systems of control in Germany and Austria as well, but we cannot (nor should we) control everything.

But Yago is wrong. This is pure speculation and something like that will not happen on a large scale, at least not for a considerable amount of time. That would be noticed and then people would suffer considerable penalties.

Yago - can you please eleborate on what makes you think/belive that GM crops are being grown in the EU on comparable scale as in the USA. Can you provide any link or other source supporting the idea of widespread cultivation of GM varieties in the EU? All the available evidence shows that only one variety of Bt corn is grown in the EU and even this GM variety does not constitute more than about 1% of EU corn hectars.

Stefan - good point. I think your scenario would constitute and interesting legal battle between the EU regulations and law of member states. If the seed was legally certified and purchased in one member state and one of the basic principles of EU is free movement of persons and goods, it could be difficult to penalize the offending farmer for planting imported GM seeds. Apparently farmers think differently than celebrities. I can't think of any self-respecting celebrity who would miss such a beautiful opportunity to make the headlines.

To be honest Tomas, I do not have time to investigate the total amount of GMO produced in the EU. However is not very relevant if its 3 or 5000 tons.

I have time to read a law in place since 2003, and I had time to not be able to see ANY SINGLE PRODUCT in Spain that contains GMO, despite we are the first EU country on producing it.

Europe produces GMO.

I guess we all can agree.

None of you have answered my question, and despite you provide a lot of information, I dont find it usefull for this matter

Where has gone all that GMO cropped in the EU?

Just disappeared?

Or is in our food not being declared?

Or you pretend me to believe that we export the full amount of GMO to the USA?

All EU GMO approved WERE in:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CONSLEG:2003R1829:20080410:EN:HTML, (as quoted in a previous message) and surprisigly... has dissapearred from the site.

There you go: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32003R1830

Yago - this is my final attempt to answer you question, which has already been answered multiple times in this thread.

1. Europe produces some (very minor) amount of GM crops (here I agree with you)

2.About 50-times more GM corn +soybean than what is produced domestically is imported from South and North America (about 30 million of tonnes/year)

3. all GM corn and GM soy from points 1 and 2. is used to make feed for chicken, pigs and cattle ( or for biogass production).

4. meat, milk and eggs from animals fed GM feed do not need to be labelled.

5. enzymes or vitamins produced by GM microorganisms do not need to be labelled

6. soybean oil which is made as a side product from feed manufacturing is used as biodiesel

Did the 30 millions of tonnes of GM corn and soy disappear? No. They were transformed to animal products, which do not have to be labeled. Since all the corn and soy ends up in the animal feed, there is not much left to put on grocery store shelves. Not to mention the fear of consumers to buy such products. Does it explain why you can't find any GM food in the store? For me it is quite believable and reasonable explanation.

Is it possible that some traces of GM crops will ocassionaly make it to the human food? Yes, it cannot be ruled out.

Is it likely that substantial proportion of human food in the EUregularly contains GM ingredients and is somehow not labelled ?No, its very unlikely for the reasons stated in the excelent answers of Lutz, Stefan, Michael and others.

The situation is completely different in the USA (no labelling, different crop composition in the fields, different food processing etc). That is why by estimate about 60-80% of all processed food in the US supermarkets contain some GM ingredients. All the best

Tomas

So you all find COMPLETELY NORMAL not to be able to see ANY GMO product in your market, no matter what country you live in.

Is that right?

Yup. As long as its an EU country and as long as you are not after animal feed.

I cant even see your point Tomas. "From farm to fork".

But is OK. Thanks.

Any other who finds this situation normal?

Why do we regulate them then? What is the point of that law?

The point of the regulation is to remove these products from the shelves. And it seems to be working damn well:)