Food Standards Agency
Sunday 5 July 2009
Safer food better business banner
AZ-Directory
What's NewRSS
What is RSS?Listen
Listen to this siteThursday 30 March 2006
Food Survey Information Sheet 05/06
Some consumers choose to avoid eating products containing GM ingredients. In order to allow consumers to make that choice, the labelling of these products needs to be accurate.
In order to ascertain whether the labelling is accurate and food manufacturers are complying with the legislation, the authenticity programme has undertaken a survey to investigate whether GM soya, in the form of Roundup Ready� soya, is present in soya ingredients used to make meat and other food products.
Back to topThe primary aim of the survey was to investigate whether certain food products with soya ingredients were correctly labelled as regards to the presence of any GM soya (Monsanto�s Roundup Ready� ).
A total of 60 samples of different soya ingredients were collected by 14 local authorities �in-factory�, and were analysed to quantify the amount of Roundup Ready� soya. The samples consisted of a range of ingredients including soya flour, soya isolates and soya mince (textured soya protein).
The samples were first screened for the presence of GM Roundup Ready� soya. This was followed by an analysis of the amount of GM Roundup Ready� soya present in the soya ingredient above the limit of quantitation of 0.06%.
Out of the 60 samples, 54 (90%) were either negative in the screening test or did not contain quantifiable levels of GM soya. The remaining six samples, where GM soya was quantified, the GM soya was present around the limit of quantitation (0.06% - 0.1%), and well below the 0.9% legal limit. Therefore, there is no requirement to label the product using these soya ingredients as 'containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)', as information on traceability confirmed this to be accidental contamination.
The survey has shown that there is little quantifiable GM contamination in the soya ingredients tested, and the companies supplying these ingredients have adequate controls in place to prevent soya ingredients from being contaminated with GM soya.
Back to topDownload pdf
(pdf 31KB) FSIS 05/06: Survey of soya ingredients in meat and other products – table of results Data tableDownload pdf
(pdf 14KB) (External) Get Adobe Acrobat reader You may need the free Acrobat Reader to view a pdfFind out what our other sites have to offer