Key Points:
- Sales of foods labeled as containing GE ingredients decreased by 5.9% after a mandatory labeling law was passed in Vermont.
- The sales effect was a small decrease, however, and researchers found that attitudes about GE products improved over time.
- It is too soon to evaluate the implications of the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard law, which was passed in January.
Labels on food alerting customers that products contain genetically engineering plants may reduce sales in the short-term, but most likely will not have a staggering effect in the long-term, according to a new study from Penn State researchers.
Published in Food Policy, the study analyzed sales trend data from Vermont after Act 120 went into effect in 2016 requiring labels on genetically engineered foods. The law was the first and only mandatory statewide labeling policy implemented in the U.S.
The researchers compared data from Vermont in 2016 with data from Oregon and Washington, which were close to passing a statewide mandatory GE labeling law but failed to do so.
According to the study, the researchers found that after the law was implemented in Vermont, sales of foods labeled as containing GE ingredients decreased by 5.9%. Meanwhile, sales of products labeled as not containing GE ingredients increased by 2.5%, and sales of organic products—which by law cannot contain GE ingredients—increased by 1.7%.
Act 120 didn’t last long in Vermont as then-President Barack Obama signed the Stabenow-Roberts GMO labeling bill that paved the way for a national labeling standard. Once the law was repealed, researchers say the trend reversed and sales of GE-labeled food increased.
“Once the law was no longer in effect, sales of GE-labeled products actually increased by 6%, suggesting improved attitudes toward GE products over time,” said Linlin Fan, assistant professor of agricultural economics at Penn State. “This could be because people became more familiar and comfortable with these products.”
As of Jan. 1, 2022, the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard law in the U.S. requires manufacturers to label all GE foods. Of course, many food manufacturers opposed the law, worried the labels would hurt sales.
“We know that GE products are safe, but many are concerned that mandatory labeling would lead to people rejecting these products and increased problems with food insecurity,” Fan said. “While we did see a small decrease in sales [in Vermont], it wasn’t a large effect, and we also found that attitudes about GE products improved over time.”
Fan said it is too early to know how the new National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard will affect sales of GE products, but the effects may be smaller to what was discovered in her current study.
Information provided by Penn State.