As EU officials drag Europe kicking and screaming down the GM route, sectors of the US food industry are trying hard to get out of GM.
Now Boulder-based Smart Balance has announced that it has stopped using GM ingredients in its 15 buttery spreads.
EXCERPT: Hughes said the company is responding to consumer demand. "Two years ago, non-GMO would not be mentioned by consumers," he said. "Today, 40 percent of our consumers want a GMO-free Smart Balance spread."
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Smart Balance dumps GMO oils from its line of 15 buttery spreads
By Howard Pankratz
The Denver Post, 3 Mar 2014
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_25267321/smart-balance-dumps-gmo-oils-from-its-lineO
Boulder-based Smart Balance announced Monday that it has stopped using genetically modified ingredients in its 15 buttery spreads and hopes to be a catalyst for change in the food industry.
"I think we are the first mainstream brand to make this conversion," Stephen Hughes, chairman and CEO of Smart Balance Brands parent Boulder Brands, said in an interview. "I think if we are successful, others will follow."
Non-GMO labeled Smart Balance will begin showing up on retailers' shelves within 30 days, and the entire product-line conversion should be complete within 90 days, Hughes said.
Smart Balance accounts for 13-14 percent of the buttery-spread market nationwide and about 20 percent in Denver, Hughes said. The company sells 22 million to 23 million units a year, mostly in 15-ounce tubs.
Hughes said the company is responding to consumer demand.
"Two years ago, non-GMO would not be mentioned by consumers," he said. "Today, 40 percent of our consumers want a GMO-free Smart Balance spread."
Meeting that market will require sourcing about 20 million pounds of oils annually — including soy, palm, olive, and canola — that are made from seeds certified not to have been modified using gene-splicing techniques, Hughes said. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 93 percent of the 2013 U.S. soybean crop was genetically modified to tolerate herbicides.
Manufacturing plants in Arkansas and California were retooled to keep non-GMO ingredients from being contaminated by those that contain GMOs.
"To have full integrity, we had to have separate tanks, separate lines to feed the production lines," he said. "That work has been going on in the last 12 months. It is not without expense."
Hughes said the increased production costs won't be passed on to consumers.
Smart Balance also has projects underway to convert its other products, including mayonnaise and cooking sprays and oils to non-GMO ingredients.
Smart Balance is "pretty committed to doing non-GMO," Hughes said. "This is a journey. This is a first step."
The brand has gone first before. When it launched in 1997 — a decade before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration required trans fat to be called out on nutrition labeling — Smart Balance was free of hydrogenated oils, a major source of heart-damaging trans fats.
"We think Smart Balance is ideally positioned to be a catalyst again," Hughes said. "Consumers are really starting to ask what is in my food. GMO is a lightning rod issue within that concern."
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or twitter.com/howardpankratz