Expanding GMO labelling

According to current EU legislation, food has to be labelled if it is a GMO or produced from a GMO irrespective of the detectability of the genetic modification. Food from animals fed with GMO feed does not fall under the labelling requirements. The governing parties in Germany intend to expand EU labelling requirements to these products.

This report provides a qualitative description of the implementation effort for firms and official inspection and control authorities. In Germany, more than 270 thousand firms would be affected by the expanded GMO labelling proposal. They have to bear additional costs for labelling and documentation as well as for separating food-processing lines into those with and without mandatory labelling requirements. Supply side changes concerning price reactions, availability of non-GMO feed and trade effects can be expected, but their magnitude strongly depends on the reactions of consumers and retailers to an expanded GMO labelling.

Since the labelled product feature cannot be detected analytically, official inspection and control authorities expect considerably higher control efforts. Consequently, the official control has to be intensified along the food chain by improving the cooperation of inspection and control authorities within Germany as well as between the EU member states.

Link to Thünen Working Paper 21:
Mögliche Auswirkungen einer Ausweitung der Gentechnik-Kennzeichnungspflicht auf Lebensmittel tierischen Ursprungs(PDF, 858KB, only in German)