Well done Waitrose!

December 2016

Photo: Creative Commons

Three years ago, when major supermarkets, such as Tesco, Mark & Spencer, Sainsbury's and the Co-op, collectively moved to allowing GM-fed animal produce on their shelves, whether their customers wanted it or not, Waitrose went out on a limb.



With a good measure of "innovative and determined thinking" (Waitrose Managing Director), and an eye firmly on the need for supply-chain security, the need for climate-friendly land-use and shipping distances, and not least the need to supply the food quality its customers want, Waitrose has sourced European non-GM feed for its livestock suppliers.

Waitrose pigs are now dining on the first shipment of soya grown in the Danube Region and sourced with the help of Donau Soja (see below).

In the Waitrose pipeline are dairy, beef and lamb from animals fed clovers and other forage proteins instead of soya, while trials on replacing soya with faba beans to feed pigs, chickens and ducks are underway.

OUR COMMENT

Waitrose just blew a great big hole in the smokescreeen carefully positioned by the UK government to keep consumers in the dark and force GM technology into our food chain [1].

Interestingly, the perceived risk to our feed supply chain actually comes from the increasing demands from developing countries for South American soya. The modern mind-set equates 'development' with soya, and soya with GM. Waitrose and Donau Soja have just proved that real, sustainable, development happens at home.

Waitrose admits it isn't going completely GM-free, but it's taken a huge step in the right direction. Send it a quick word of appreciation and encouragement any way you want:

e-mail - customersupport@waitrose.co.uk,

'phone - 0800 188 884

Twitter - @waitrose

Facebook - /waitrose

or, write straight to the Managing Director at Waitrose Central Offices, Doncaster Road, Southern Industrial Area, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 8YA

Background:

[1] FEED ME THE TRUTH - November 2016

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Donau Soja (The Danube Soya Growers Association)

This Association represents GM-free, origin-controlled, quality soya from the Danube Region of Europe. It aims to give consumers certainty, and to open the door to pioneering European businesses providing GM-free animal feed.

Its main objectives are:

• to promote cultivation and processing of GM-free soya
• to establish reliable GM-free soya supply and value-added chains
• to direct and fund breeding, research and monitoring for GM-free soya

Additional objectives include:

• traceability
• use of currently available and fallow land
• reduction of the soya carbon footprint
• systematically inform the public
• evaluate and measure the programme's success

www.donausoja.org/en/

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SOURCES:

• Well done Waitrose, GM Freeze 3.11.16
• UK: Waitrose supermarket to switch to non-GM soy for pork products, GM Freeze 1.11.16
• The biggest blow against GM crops this century, Soil Association 1.11.16
• Waitrose to responsibly source European soya in UK retailer first, Waitrose Press Centre, 1.11.16
• Sean Poulter, Waitrose ends use of GM animal feed on its farms: Critics hail decision as 'beginning of end' for use of the crops in the UK, Daily Mail, 2.11.16
• Alex Black, Waitrose moves away from South American soya, Farmers Guardian Insight, 2.11.16