Food Industry Leaders Say Consumers Want GMO labels

With a new federal labeling standard on the way, food company executives told the Wall Street Journal that consumers want GMO products labeled. The Wall Street Journal gathered executives in agribusiness, consumer products and government to explore challenges and opportunities in the industry last week. A loud voice in the labeling acceptance world, Campbell Soup Company, says the company supports labeling because consumers want transparency. Meanwhile, Panera Bread’s founders say they are “not taking a unilateral position on GMOs,” but added Panera supports GMO labeling because that is what their customers want. However, executives of Wal-Mart took a different angle. A Wal-Mart spokesperson says “the debate never should have been about labeling, but rather about whether GMOs are safe or not, and relying on science as the guide.” Wal-Mart officials say food producers and retailers may have to educate consumers to close the gap between perceived and actual risk, but added the company will “always offer what the customer wants.”       China Businessman Sentenced Three Years for Stealing Seed Trade Secrets A businessman from China will serve three years in prison after being caught rummaging through Iowa cornfields to learn trade secrets from U.S. seed corn companies. The Des Moines Register reports the man known as Robert Mo was taking seed from the Midwest and shipping it to China. He was found by DuPont Pioneer security guards in 2011 digging in a corn field where test plots of new seed corn varieties were growing. He was arrested in 2013, but five other coworkers fled the U.S. before they could be arrested. Prosecutors say he traveled the Midwest working for Kings Nower Seed, a subsidiary of a technology conglomerate in China, to take corn seed and ship it to China so scientists could attempt to reproduce its genetic traits. He pled guilty in January and was sentenced to three years in prison this week.