rightful claim
Consumer
watchdog
body
TOPIC has
confirmed
the Fry's
claim
that it's
products
are free
of GMOs.
F
ry's Original Hot Dogs was TOPIC's top nominated product by
consumers in early March. The product claims on the box that it is
'a non GM product' and the TOPIC team went to work uncovering
the facts.
In line with TOPIC's policy of engagement, they contacted the
family-owned vegetarian food company that is based in KwaZulu-Natal.
It was established that Fry's routinely test their products for traces of
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) with the well-known GMO Testing
Facility at the University of the Free State (UFS). Fry's promised to send
TOPIC their next test results once they were received.
Two weeks later, as promised, TOPIC received the Certificate of
Analysis from the GMO Testing Facility which conducted a GMO double
screen for 35S (cauliflower mosaic virus) and NOS (Agrobacterium
tumefaciens) in the soy product. The sample contained less than 0.41%
of transgenic 35S promoter DNA in relation to total soy DNA.
Fry's Quality Manager, Cornell van Staden, commented: 'Please
note that the Hotdogs had a reading of 0.41% which is less than the
requirement of 0.9% which is therefore within specification.'
The company exports worldwide and is therefore holding themselves
to the most stringent European Union (EU) standards for GM labelling, less
than 0.9%. This threshold is set due to the sometimes unavoidable small
amount of mixing that can occur during the production, transportation,
and processing of agricultural products. South African law is much less
strict and allows a product to have up to 5% GM ingredients before being
ODYSSEY 67
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DIGIMAG