Food activists in over 100 cities across the United States protested this week in front of leading supermarket chains to voice their concerns about genetically engineered foods.
A new nationwide alliance, the GE-Free Markets Coalition, and regional anti-GE food groups organised the day of action as part of a campaign to remove GE foods from supermarkets.
In a statement the coalition cited the fact that similar supermarket campaigns in Europe and Japan have forced GE foods off the market. In the US consumer and environmental groups are demanding that Safeway and other leading supermarket chains remove all GEfood ingredients from their store brand products.Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Trader Joe's supermarket chains have already responded to consumerpressure by pledging to remove GE ingredients from their store brand products.
"We are here to put all major supermarkets on notice that American consumersdo not want to be guinea pigs in this genetic experiment with our food," said Heather Whitehead of Greenpeace.
"If Whole Foods, Wild Oats and TraderJoe's can listen to their customers and remove untested and unwanted GE ingredients, so can these other leading supermarkets," Whitehead continued.
The national supermarketcampaign was launched in March by the member groups of the GE-Free MarketsCoalition, including Greenpeace, GE Free LA and the Organic Consumers Association.
Also in the press this week were reports that police in Scotland had arrested four people after a group of protesters trampled on a field of geneticallymodified (GM) crops in eastern Scotland.