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Labelling and traceability of genetically modified food and feed

Regulation (EC) No. 1829/2003 envisages informing the consumer through corresponding labelling if a genetically modified food or feed differs from its conventional counterpart in terms of

• composition, nutritional value, nutritive effects or intended use;
• implications for the health of certain sections of the population or specific species or categories of animals;
• ethical or religious concerns,

Furthermore, the labelling must clearly indicate that this is a genetically modified food or feed.

Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 envisages, independent of the detectability of genetic modifications, the wording “genetically modified“ or “produced from genetically modified (e.g. maize)“ on the labels of all products made from GMOs including feed which had hitherto not been subject to compulsory labelling. In future, for instance, any refined food oils that cannot be distinguished analytically from convention rapeseed will have to be labelled.

A threshold value of 1% had been valid up to now. Below this value labelling was not necessary as long as this was shown to apply to proven random or technically unavoidable traces of GMOs which had reached a product during cultivation, transport or processing. It has been reduced to 0.9%.

Regulation (EC) No 1830/2003 envisages traceability measures in order to facilitate the monitoring of the environmental impact stipulated for GMOs and, if necessary, the withdrawal of the food and feed produced from GMOs from the market. To this end, the European Commission has laid down in Regulation (EC) No 65/2004 a system for drawing up and allocating specific identifiers for each GMO. The persons involved in placing these products on the market must establish systems and standardised procedures by means of which the information on the GMOs can be stored for a period of five years.

Besides a labelling proposal, the detection methods and reference material, which are required to control the labelling and traceability provisions – in Germany by the competent monitoring authorities of the Federal States -, must be submitted together with the marketing authorisation application.

The testing and evaluation of detection methods is the responsibility of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission which already established, for this purpose, a European Network of GMO Laboratories (ENGL) in December 2002. BfR, whose staff already started developing detection methods for genetically modified foods in 1995, is one of the founding members of this network.

Working groups of the German and European Standardisation Institutes DIN and CEN under the aegis of the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) are involved in the international standardisation of methods for the detection of foods produced from GMOs and the quantification of material from GMOs – including the method evaluated by the Joint Research Centre.

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