Food Standards Agency
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The Agency supports consumer choice. We recognise that some people will want to choose not to buy or eat genetically modified (GM) foods, however carefully they have been assessed for safety.
In the EU, if a food contains or consists of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), or contains ingredients produced from GMOs, this must be indicated on the label. For GM products sold 'loose', information must be displayed immediately next to the food to indicate that it is GM.
On 18 April 2004, new rules for GM labelling came into force in all EU Member States.
The GM Food and Feed Regulation (EC) No. 1829/2003 lays down rules to cover all GM food and animal feed, regardless of the presence of any GM material in the final product.
This means products such as flour, oils and glucose syrups have to be labelled as GM if they are from a GM source.
Products produced with GM technology (cheese produced with GM enzymes, for example) do not have to be labelled.
Products such as meat, milk and eggs from animals fed on GM animal feed also do not need to be labelled. Details on the labelling rules can be found on the table below.
Any intentional use of GM ingredients at any level must be labelled. However, the Food and Feed Regulation provides for a threshold for the adventitious, or accidental, presence of GM material in non-GM food or feed sources. This threshold is set at 0.9% and only applies to GMOs that have an EU authorisation. The temporary threshold of 0.5% for the presence of GM material not yet authorised, but that had a favourable assessment from an EU scientific committee, expired in April 2007. This means that such unauthorised GM material cannot be present at any level.
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GM – genetically modified
GMM – genetically modified micro-organism
Food or feed produced by a fermentation process using a GMM that is kept under contained conditions and is not present in the final product does not fall within the scope of this regulation. Such food and feed is considered to have been produced with the GMM, rather than from the GMM.
This agreement was reached at the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health – Section on Genetically Modified Food and Feed and Environmental Risk meeting of 24 September 2004. (External) See the minutes of the meeting on the European Commission website . The letter sent to stakeholders on this issue on 4 January 2005 can be found at the link below.
This was confirmed in the Commission's review of the regulations published in October 2006 (see below).
Article 48 of the GM Food and Feed Regulation required the Commission to forward to the European Parliament and the Council a report on the implementation of this measure. In order to prepare this report, the Commission circulated a questionnaire to member states which had the following objectives:
Responses from the FSA and stakeholders to this questionnaire are attached below as the 'European Commission GM questionnaire responses' document.
The Commission's report was published on 25 October 2006 and can be found on the Commission website via the link below.
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(pdf 90KB) Guidance Notes on Reg (EC) No 1829/2003, GM food and feed, and Reg (EC) No 1830/2003, traceability and labelling of GMOsDownload pdf
(pdf 610KB) Regulation (EC) No 1829/2003 on genetically modified food and feed Read the regulationDownload pdf
(pdf 223KB) Regulation (EC) No 1830/2003 concerning traceability and labelling Read the regulationDownload pdf
(pdf 118KB) Stakeholder letter about the regulation of genetically modified micro-organisms (GMMs) Read the letter sent to interested parties, 4 January 2005Download pdf
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