COMMENT from TraceConsult: It seems the ice is broken: Germany's No.2 in poultry production, Gebr. Stolle GmbH & Co. KG, will soon be No.1 in applying the country's still relatively new law on positive "GM-free" claims on broiler chickens. This would make them the first major supplier of animal products to come out with this new claim.

Already certified last autumn under Intertek's Non-GMO standard, a fact the company already announced at the InterMeat trade show in Cologne in October*), they seem now set up to take the claim to the actual product. Under German law, that would require the words "ohne Gentechnik" (without genetic engineering) to be used. In this regard, the reporting below is not entirely correct. But Stolle is probably well advised about this.

Things promise to become exciting now as to who will follow next - and with what type of product.

* See TraceConsult eNews of 14 October 2008.
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Broilers without biotech
[German poultry producer] Stolle converts production
HNA Online, 29 March 2009
http://www.hna.de/breakingnews/00_20090319144800_Grillhaehnchen_ohne_Gentechnik.html
Gudensberg. 9,000 to 10,000 broiler chickens per hour are converted into food products by Gudensberg-based producer Stolle, that is 480,000 broilers per week. From the beginning of May they will be fed without genetic engineering - guaranteed - with certification.

Scientifically, the jury is still out on whether genetically modified compound feed can travel through the animal in the food chain to a human, says Albert Focke, Stolle's spokesman. But the conversion made sense and was technically possible.

The manufacturing of animal nutrition for the feeding of broilers is subject to stringent criteria and quality controls. One of the group's feed mills already uses exclusively grain and soy that are planted GM-free.

95 percent of the almost completely domestic farmers who supply chickens to Stolle use the feed manufactured here. The finished food product will then be allowed to carry the label "NON-GMO" (non-genetically modified). This means it is free of bioengineered components.