The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has recently completed a survey to identify foods containing GM maize and/or soya ingredients and to check for compliance with EU labelling regulations. This was the third such survey undertaken by the FSAI in recent years and was in compliance with the European Commission’s coordinated programme for the Official Control of Foodstuffs for 2002.

Samples used for this survey included breakfast cereals, baby foods, snack foods, dried soya products, soya and maize flours and bakery products.

The results show that 12 of the 75 samples tested (16%) contained GM ingredients. Nine samples were shown to contain Roundup Ready soya, 1 contained Bt176 maize and the remaining 2 were not identified. Both Roundup Ready soya and Bt176 maize are authorised for food use within the EU. None of the GM-positive samples contained greater than 1% GM material which meant that specific GM labelling was not required.

Six of the 12 foods containing GM material (50%) had labels indicating that they contained no GM ingredients, with one of those also having an organic label. Another food containing GM ingredients was labelled as organic even though EU legislation governing organic foods stipulates that GM material is not tolerated at any level in products certified as organic. A total of 17 of the 75 foods purchased had organic labels but 2 of those (12%) were found to contain some GM ingredients.

GM-free type labelling was carried on 19 of the foods sampled and 6 of these products (32%) were found to contain some level of GM ingredient. These labels could be considered to be in breach of the general food labelling Directive which prohibits labelling or methods of labelling that could mislead the purchaser to a material degree.