GMO labeling

[-X-]

just that they will label me "incorrectly"

Well, I'm interest in your take - as outside the box as it may be. Like I said, we may not be that far off on some aspects of it.

 

[RamFan503]

So I would be more in favor of a new type of labeling where companies are more general and not as specific on their labels, cutting the cost for paper, ink, man hours, machine hours and etc, but on their already company maintained website they go into what the generalizations really are. An could even provide links to any studies done on each ingredient or additive so the consumer could feel more informed about the product. Then of course pass the savings on from the offset of a new labeling model to the consumer.

While I don't agree that it would cost any real extra money besides the coordinating of what goes on the label, I have no problem with the website idea. The company could elaborate on the ingredient and even brag about the benefits as long as they also said what the modification was. But that labeling would really cost them anything is a little hard to justify. We're only talking about adding a few words to the ingredient list or an asterisk like you now find when a product is produced in a facility that processes nuts for example. IMO if people are expecting all the info as far as research done and so forth printed on a label, they are not being rational.

With more and more globalization, what happens elsewhere affects us too though, so its not really smart for us to just say "well freak em" because that'll hurt us too. Plus isn't this similar to the China labor industry, people say we should lower our standards to compete with China? I would say no to both, but GMO's arent lowering our standards, in most cases they improve on the item.

I'm not saying what happens around the world doesn't affect us. What I'm saying is that our laws regarding labeling shouldn't be affected by other countries and have the excuse being that our rules would somehow negatively affect the global food supply. It has nothing to do with banning GMOs locally or globally. I'm not suggesting that at all. I'm also not suggesting that GMOs lower any standard. In fact, I don't really get how that would come into play unless there was a known health risk like the corn that had the protein that was virtually (not literally) indigestible by humans. I try to stay away from generalities - which is why I would like them to simply state what the modification was or maybe its purpose.

I don't see where on a label when it lists soy for example it can't say something like "soy (contains traces of Brazil Nut)" or "corn (modified to resist pesticides)" At minimum maybe just put on the label, "contains ingredients that have been genetically modified" or "contains modified grains". I fail to see how this kind of a requirement would somehow affect the global food supply.

If I don't trust the science that says that ingesting glyphosate is not a health risk, I shouldn't have to eat it for fear of being an alarmist. If I have tested positive for nut allergies, I shouldn't have to just hope I'm not eating a product that contains them. Hell - they have to inform that products are made in the same facility that processes nuts yet not that nuts are known to be in the product? Just makes no sense to me.

 

[RamFan503]

Well, I'm interest in your take - as outside the box as it may be. Like I said, we may not be that far off on some aspects of it.

Oh - you will be. Have you SEEN the stuff Stranger writes?

Just messin with yuh Stranger.

 

[RmsLegends]

While I don't agree that it would cost any real extra money besides the coordinating of what goes on the label, I have no problem with the website idea. The company could elaborate on the ingredient and even brag about the benefits as long as they also said what the modification was. But that labeling would really cost them anything is a little hard to justify. We're only talking about adding a few words to the ingredient list or an asterisk like you now find when a product is produced in a facility that processes nuts for example. IMO if people are expecting all the info as far as research done and so forth printed on a label, they are not being rational.

It would cost bro. Millions actually. Say canned corn for example, it is very likely a large company prints off 100 million labels a year for it's canned corn. The additional cost of one penny per label means that the company has now incurred additional cost of 1 million dollars. An that is on just one product someone like Del Monte might sell, so now when ya add the additional cost on all their printed products ya are in millions and not a cost companies can afford to eat so it gets passed to ya the consumer.

Say on corn again ya eat 60 cans a year or 5 a month. Your cost if the company just passes on to ya the penny. Will be a additional .60 per year which is not bad but if ya buy at least a 100 different products a year and eat them with the same amount of frequency your additional cost for food is $60.00 a year. Some States charge tax on food and some don't if ya live in a State that charges tax there are a couple more bucks gone.

Depending on what kind of products ya eat and how much a simple penny raise could cost ya as high as 2 or 3 digits more a year.

Companies won't eat the cost of millions as they are most often public held. An guys like me who make their living off of the equities market will not keep a stock around that does not meet or beat it's street quarterly or yearly estimated earnings. So any sell off due to not meeting estimated earnings because a company took a loss in earnings by not passing on a penny increase in price. Means the stock goes down in value and sells at cheaper price.

Odds are many of the large mutual funds and other retirement accounts continue to hold the company as it's still meets their stated investment objective. Your retirement account has just become less by each company it holds who is effected by the new price increase and not passing the cost on to ya.

The company can pass the penny cost on as a increase in the price of their product. Which effects every American as now Congress sees food has a higher cost overall so they have to decide how much more to raise the COLA for food stamps which again hits Americans in the pocket book as Congress will not raise taxes, but borrow more to meet this additional expenditure.

If passing the direct cost of the penny on to ya as the consumer does not work because of the price point, companies do the old trick of keeping the price point, but sell ya less in quantity. So that way your price stays the same and ya buy just a little less by volume. This method could effect your pocket book at the restaurant of choice as well. They have standardized serving portions and they expect they can get x amount of servings out of each container. So any product they buy that now contains less means they have to buy more of a given product to meet their standardized portions. So again ya can count on some kind of price increase from the eating out industry.

An all this is on the assumption that any new increase is only a penny per product. Since Congress would write the new law depending on how it is worded ya can have the cost of lawyers involved and involved to the extent of how congress words it.

On a 100 million labels printed. If each label takes one additional second to print ya are looking at 27,778 additional man hours, if it only takes a additional fraction of a second say 10 million seconds your man hours are then 2,778, if the fraction is even smaller say only 1 million additional seconds ya still have a increase of man hours of 278 hours. An again all this is just based off of one individual product. So when ya look at industry wide ya can see that any additional labeling is gonna have a increase in production cost. An however the food industry chooses to pass it on ya are gonna pay more for your food cost.

An in the example above that is just on additional man hours. We still have not exampled the cost of additional material or factored in machinery life to print for additional hours. So to make it all simple I chose to use one penny as the overall additional cost for any and all additional associated cost. So the fact is the additional labeling is gonna cost more. An depending on each individuals set of circumstances, size of family, your income, amount ya eat, and etc the effect can and will be harder on some rather than others.

 

[RamFan503]

It would cost bro. Millions actually. Say canned corn for example, it is very likely a large company prints off 100 million labels a year for it's canned corn. The additional cost of one penny per label means that the company has now incurred additional cost of 1 million dollars. An that is on just one product someone like Del Monte might sell, so now when ya add the additional cost on all their printed products ya are in millions and not a cost companies can afford to eat so it gets passed to ya the consumer.

Say on corn again ya eat 60 cans a year or 5 a month. Your cost if the company just passes on to ya the penny. Will be a additional .60 per year which is not bad but if ya buy at least a 100 different products a year and eat them with the same amount of frequency your additional cost for food is $60.00 a year. Some States charge tax on food and some don't if ya live in a State that charges tax there are a couple more bucks gone.

Depending on what kind of products ya eat and how much a simple penny raise could cost ya as high as 2 or 3 digits more a year.

Companies won't eat the cost of millions as they are most often public held. An guys like me who make their living off of the equities market will not keep a stock around that does not meet or beat it's street quarterly or yearly estimated earnings. So any sell off due to not meeting estimated earnings because a company took a loss in earnings by not passing on a penny increase in price. Means the stock goes down in value and sells at cheaper price.

Odds are many of the large mutual funds and other retirement accounts continue to hold the company as it's still meets their stated investment objective. Your retirement account has just become less by each company it holds who is effected by the new price increase and not passing the cost on to ya.

The company can pass the penny cost on as a increase in the price of their product. Which effects every American as now Congress sees food has a higher cost overall so they have to decide how much more to raise the COLA for food stamps which again hits Americans in the pocket book as Congress will not raise taxes, but borrow more to meet this additional expenditure.

If passing the direct cost of the penny on to ya as the consumer does not work because of the price point, companies do the old trick of keeping the price point, but sell ya less in quantity. So that way your price stays the same and ya buy just a little less by volume. This method could effect your pocket book at the restaurant of choice as well. They have standardized serving portions and they expect they can get x amount of servings out of each container. So any product they buy that now contains less means they have to buy more of a given product to meet their standardized portions. So again ya can count on some kind of price increase from the eating out industry.

An all this is on the assumption that any new increase is only a penny per product. Since Congress would write the new law depending on how it is worded ya can have the cost of lawyers involved and involved to the extent of how congress words it.

On a 100 million labels printed. If each label takes one additional second to print ya are looking at 27,778 additional man hours, if it only takes a additional fraction of a second say 10 million seconds your man hours are then 2,778, if the fraction is even smaller say only 1 million additional seconds ya still have a increase of man hours of 278 hours. An again all this is just based off of one individual product. So when ya look at industry wide ya can see that any additional labeling is gonna have a increase in production cost. An however the food industry chooses to pass it on ya are gonna pay more for your food cost.

An in the example above that is just on additional man hours. We still have not exampled the cost of additional material or factored in machinery life to print for additional hours. So to make it all simple I chose to use one penny as the overall additional cost for any and all additional associated cost. So the fact is the additional labeling is gonna cost more. An depending on each individuals set of circumstances, size of family, your income, amount ya eat, and etc the effect can and will be harder on some rather than others.

Come on man. First of all, these laws are almost always enacted with a time frame for implementation. Therefore, the new labels would only be placed on subsequent cans or packaging. So no reprinting would be necessary. If it did cost an extra penny a can - which it wouldn't come close to - that would mean an increase of 3 cents a can with standard mark-up. There is exactly ZERO extra time involved in printing labels with a little more information on them. Just a one time cost in changing the label itself.

I'm very familiar with the labeling process and its requirements. Not only am I a producer of labeled products, but I am currently working on a deal that could put my products in some major stores (stay tuned y'all). How in the heck do you figure a printer is going to have to run any longer or that workers are going to have to work longer in this process? Do you think they are using some dot matrix printer that scrolls along the paper and guys are sitting there waiting to peal the label off the printer? The modern printer has absolutely no change in it's process no matter how many words or graphics are on the label. An increased cost of printing the labels is literally non-existent. They spend real money virtually every year to redesign the graphics on their labels and THAT doesn't cost them a penny a piece. Changing the marketing and such - sure. But there is nothing about the ingredients list or nutritional information that would affect that.

This is probably a more likely example of the costs involved. Lobbying - maybe the biggest cost. The lobbyists would shift to a new battle so don't think for a second that this "expense" would go away. Legal - the company's legal department would have to work out the wording to coincide with the new law. This wording would be used on most products Del Monte (for example) produces with only minor changes - it's known as boiler plate wording. And in reality, the implementation language of the law would give them parameters of what the labels could say or had to include. Any bill or law carries implementation language if passed. So the legal work there would be negligible. Look into the point of origin laws and you will see it is pretty simple.

That is about it. The companies already know what is in their products. They would just have to say. What they don't want is for cottage industries to get a stronghold or even a place at the table in their market. Sure that might cost them. I get that. But letting the industry dictate what they tell the public would have resulted in no ingredient labeling at all. These same companies have fought against all those laws except in the rare case that it offered them a market advantage.

 

[RmsLegends]

Come on man. First of all, these laws are almost always enacted with a time frame for implementation. Therefore, the new labels would only be placed on subsequent cans or packaging. So no reprinting would be necessary. If it did cost an extra penny a can - which it wouldn't come close to - that would mean an increase of 3 cents a can with standard mark-up. There is exactly ZERO extra time involved in printing labels with a little more information on them. Just a one time cost in changing the label itself.

I'm very familiar with the labeling process and its requirements. Not only am I a producer of labeled products, but I am currently working on a deal that could put my products in some major stores (stay tuned y'all). How in the heck do you figure a printer is going to have to run any longer or that workers are going to have to work longer in this process? Do you think they are using some dot matrix printer that scrolls along the paper and guys are sitting there waiting to peal the label off the printer? The modern printer has absolutely no change in it's process no matter how many words or graphics are on the label. An increased cost of printing the labels is literally non-existent. They spend real money virtually every year to redesign the graphics on their labels and THAT doesn't cost them a penny a piece. Changing the marketing and such - sure. But there is nothing about the ingredients list or nutritional information that would affect that.

This is probably a more likely example of the costs involved. Lobbying - maybe the biggest cost. The lobbyists would shift to a new battle so don't think for a second that this "expense" would go away. Legal - the company's legal department would have to work out the wording to coincide with the new law. This wording would be used on most products Del Monte (for example) produces with only minor changes - it's known as boiler plate wording. And in reality, the implementation language of the law would give them parameters of what the labels could say or had to include. Any bill or law carries implementation language if passed. So the legal work there would be negligible. Look into the point of origin laws and you will see it is pretty simple.

That is about it. The companies already know what is in their products. They would just have to say. What they don't want is for cottage industries to get a stronghold or even a place at the table in their market. Sure that might cost them. I get that. But letting the industry dictate what they tell the public would have resulted in no ingredient labeling at all. These same companies have fought against all those laws except in the rare case that it offered them a market advantage.

It depends on what side of the argument ya fall on some studies have shown that it would cost no more and others have shown it could cost as much as $500.00 additional in food costs for a family of 4. When ya take into account their are 250,00 SKU products sold nationwide and each SKU would also have to be changed. As well as labeling GMO products would require separate production lines or stopping your current production line to load new film for the GMO print, which one argument said could take up to 45 minutes to do while still paying for labor while losing production time.

So from both sides of the studies and arguments I have read I fall on the side I do believe it will cost more.

So my solution in my mind is give the customer what they want in more info, but do so on their web site and use the bare minimum ya can by law to print your label. As logically I believe I can conclude anyone who is gonna read a label will read their website. An their are those those who won't read either why incur any additional cost or even keep a present cost by mandating a law change for only a percentage of your customers who seek to be informed.

So I would be more apt to legislate in a direction to scale the labeling so it is more generalized and even less and save some costs realizing some consumers are never even gonna read the product label to see what it contains. Meanwhile ya put on your website detailed info for those who would take the time to read a label. An then any associated savings from a system that takes into account ya have consumers who want to be informed and those who care less, ya pass the savings onto the consumer.

One study has shown only 30% of people read product labels to see what they contain. While another has shown as much as 60% of people do. So why incur a 100% cost for only 30% or 60% of consumers who want to be informed depending on which way ya want to lean on the studies. So like I said I have no problem with labeling I just think it could be more cost effective by doing less in one way and more in the other. Meanwhile giving any savings back to your customer.

 

[Stranger]

Well, I'm interest in your take - as outside the box as it may be. Like I said, we may not be that far off on some aspects of it.

those thing trumpeted the loudest by Congress and the media are the things we should least be concerned. The food system's sophistication is well beyond these labels. For example, I doubt this will remove 1person from Papa Johns market share, but his pizza might as well be labelled as poison. Same goes for 99.9% of milk sold, organic or otherwise.

 

[RmsLegends]

those thing trumpeted the loudest by Congress and the media are the things we should least be concerned. The food system's sophistication is well beyond these labels. For example, I doubt this will remove 1person from Papa Johns market share, but his pizza might as well be labelled as poison. Same goes for 99.9% of milk sold, organic or otherwise.

I can sure get behind your logic of what they trumpet the loudest. Early on our founders considered a idea of having a cool of period of one year on legislation from when it is written to it is voted upon to remove as much of any emotional aspects that could go into the vote. An give due time and course for additional arguments and new info. They were worried that emotion and pandering to the concern of the hour mentality could lead us down to some bad legislation not based on logic and reasoned discourse.

Move ahead a couple hundred years now and I think we have enough evidence to prove their worry was justified and is a problem in our legislation process. I have stated before on other boards I personally would be so in favor of some kind of cool of period so every angle could be examined and decisions be based more on reason and logic than the emotional aspect or pandering to the widest audience possible. I think this way they could do more of whats better for the country vs whats better for the squeaky wheel seeking the grease and their own re-election campaigns. Not to mention how much ad hock additional legislation do we have already going on simply referred to as lets just pass it today and then tweak it down the road.

One of the worst is when government decided upon a new amendment calling for a direct tax of it's citizens, hell we have been tweaking it every since and we still think it still needs to be tweaked. An in recent days can we honestly believe the new health care laws will be tweaked anytime soon. So I am behind ya bro on beware when government says we need this and fear even more when they say we need this now.

 

[Thordaddy]

I read an article that claimed it would take 240 years to save one life by labeling creosote as a carcinogen, in that same article it spoke of a bank in KC that was fined for not having a brale keypad at their drive thru

 

[Stranger]

One of the worst is when government decided upon a new amendment calling for a direct tax of it's citizens, hell we have been tweaking it every since and we still think it still needs to be tweaked. An in recent days can we honestly believe the new health care laws will be tweaked anytime soon. So I am behind ya bro on beware when government says we need this and fear even more when they say we need this now.

You mean the one that they passed on the Senate on Christmas Eve of 1913 with barely a Quorum present?

I read an article that claimed it would take 240 years to save one life by labeling creosote as a carcinogen

Now, see what happens if we try to outlaw Soyabean as animal feed. You can thank the Federal Criminal Michael Milkin for being the front man on this one.

 

[RmsLegends]

I read an article that claimed it would take 240 years to save one life by labeling creosote as a carcinogen, in that same article it spoke of a bank in KC that was fined for not having a brale keypad at their drive thru

I reckon the visioned person who drove the blind guy there was just a dick and would not point out were the numbers are. I am curious though I understand ya have to have equal access under handicap laws. However how does a blind guy in the drive up work. I assume since it was a key pad he was at the drive up ATM and since he did not drive himself, to operate the drive up ATM he has to get out of the car and stand in front of it while using it. So for his safety is the ATM safely in front of the building or one connected and by the actual drive up lanes were ya now have a blind guy standing amongst vehicles that are moving not aware he is blind. An if so is that not unfair to him he has to stand to do his banking outside in the drive up when everyone else gets to sit so shouldn't we provide a fold down chair for him so he can experience the same convenience of the visioned sitting down motorists?

 

[RamFan503]

So my solution in my mind is give the customer what they want in more info, but do so on their web site and use the bare minimum ya can by law to print your label. As logically I believe I can conclude anyone who is gonna read a label will read their website. An their are those those who won't read either why incur any additional cost or even keep a present cost by mandating a law change for only a percentage of your customers who seek to be informed.

And I'm ok with that too and agree that most won't read it anyway.

Small aside, the SKU is tied to the product - not what is in it. If for example, I have a bottle of sauce and I decide to change the ingredients, I would simply change the ingredients list and have a new nutritional breakdown done and reprint the label with the new info but the same SKU. That is up to the owner of the SKU codes.

There is no stopping of the production line unless the company changes recipes. Merely stating what is in the recipe with additional information would be done seamlessly with only a few cans kicked out at the end run of the old labels.

I'm a business first guy and even I don't buy that these companies chief concern is saving the money of those in poverty. The costs are way over exaggerated toward an end goal.

And I'd agree that few people actually read the nutritional info and ingredients on a label. 30% might even be high. More likely that it was a poll and people didn't want to look like they were uninformed so they answered yes. Polls are funny that way.

 

[RamFan503]

I can sure get behind your logic of what they trumpet the loudest. Early on our founders considered a idea of having a cool of period of one year on legislation from when it is written to it is voted upon to remove as much of any emotional aspects that could go into the vote. An give due time and course for additional arguments and new info. They were worried that emotion and pandering to the concern of the hour mentality could lead us down to some bad legislation not based on logic and reasoned discourse.

Move ahead a couple hundred years now and I think we have enough evidence to prove their worry was justified and is a problem in our legislation process. I have stated before on other boards I personally would be so in favor of some kind of cool of period so every angle could be examined and decisions be based more on reason and logic than the emotional aspect or pandering to the widest audience possible. I think this way they could do more of whats better for the country vs whats better for the squeaky wheel seeking the grease and their own re-election campaigns. Not to mention how much ad hock additional legislation do we have already going on simply referred to as lets just pass it today and then tweak it down the road.

One of the worst is when government decided upon a new amendment calling for a direct tax of it's citizens, hell we have been tweaking it every since and we still think it still needs to be tweaked. An in recent days can we honestly believe the new health care laws will be tweaked anytime soon. So I am behind ya bro on beware when government says we need this and fear even more when they say we need this now.

Got my vote - especially on the cool down period. And yes - they discussed the idea quite a bit and even instituted a form of it. Funny - people bitch about gridlock. Gridlock is by design and I find it quite clever. It was designed so that if a law, bill, latest whim of the politicians, didn't have a real groundswell of support, it likely wouldn't have the thrust required to pass. Makes me cringe when people want to streamline that particular process.

 

[Stranger]

Small aside, the SKU is tied to the product - not what is in it. If for example, I have a bottle of sauce and I decide to change the ingredients, I would simply change the ingredients list and have a new nutritional breakdown done and reprint the label with the new info but the same SKU. That is up to the owner of the SKU codes.

Not for long, my baby back rib producing friend. If I have my way, we'll soon be working with a company that has developed a technology to install genetic sensors in a microprocessor, so one can do an on-the-fly spectral analysis on everything, including food products in a container.

They've already installed the miroprocessor into a retainer that fits into the human mouth, detecting everything one eats for allergic reaction. Wild wild stuff.

 

[RamFan503]

I reckon the visioned person who drove the blind guy there was just a dick and would not point out were the numbers are. I am curious though I understand ya have to have equal access under handicap laws. However how does a blind guy in the drive up work. I assume since it was a key pad he was at the drive up ATM and since he did not drive himself, to operate the drive up ATM he has to get out of the car and stand in front of it while using it. So for his safety is the ATM safely in front of the building or one connected and by the actual drive up lanes were ya now have a blind guy standing amongst vehicles that are moving not aware he is blind. An if so is that not unfair to him he has to stand to do his banking outside in the drive up when everyone else gets to sit so shouldn't we provide a fold down chair for him so he can experience the same convenience of the visioned sitting down motorists?

Naw. He drove himself. You know you've seen them on the roads. I sure as hell have.

 

[RamFan503]

Not for long, my baby back rib producing friend. If I have my way, we'll soon be working with a company that has developed a technology to install genetic sensors in a microprocessor, so one can do an on-the-fly spectral analysis on everything, including food products in a container.

They've already installed the miroprocessor into a retainer that fits into the human mouth, detecting everything one eats for allergic reaction. Wild wild stuff.

Orwellian you say? Ain't happening with this rib eater's mouf.

 

[Thordaddy]

You mean the one that they passed on the Senate on Christmas Eve of 1913 with barely a Quorum present?

Now, see what happens if we try to outlaw Soyabean as animal feed. You can thank the Federal Criminal Michael Milkin for being the front man on this one.

Yeah since I've had Leukemia, I've sarcastically adopted the old Dupont slogan "Better Living Through Chemistry". I've been told this generation won't live as long as our parents , I don't doubt it in the least.

 

[Yamahopper]

That's sort of an urban myth Hopper, a Japaneese land buyer told a real estate broker I know that Japan could feed itself by farming the the medians in our Interstate Highway system.
There is so much land not utilized that could produce ,the shortage faced is a shortage of capitalism ,socialism starved the Soviet Union, over 7 million Ukraine's starved to death alone during "The Harvest of Sorrow" .

And yes , I grew up in the city and moved to a farm in 1988, but that was my family moving back , grandfather was a registered Hereford breeder who moved to the city when his farm was condemned under eminent domain to build a POW camp in Weingarten MO. WW II "the big one".

The yield now vs. 30 years ago on the same acre is 25% more with a 3rd less fertilizer and the improved drought resistance meaning it will still be a serviceable crop with 40% less rain. That's for corn , soybean is a little more. It's for the most part due to better seed being developed. Developed for certain purposes and for the growing conditions.


While that's great for the Japanese, and maybe he should try it. But it would be a drop in bucket to the ship loads of grain they buy from North America.

 

[RamFan503]

The yield now vs. 30 years ago on the same acre is 25% more with a 3rd less fertilizer and the improved drought resistance meaning it will still be a serviceable crop with 40% less rain. That's for corn , soybean is a little more. It's for the most part due to better seed being developed. Developed for certain purposes and for the growing conditions.

I guess I don't understand how this would be negatively affected by labeling requirements. I get how it would if we went the extreme route that some may want in ending genetic engineering all together. I just don't buy that cluing people in on a label makes the advances in agriculture end. It seems that the only way it would is if they find a link to certain ailments with a particular food or ingredient.

 

[Stranger]

Yeah since I've had Leukemia

I'm very sorry to hear this. I had no idea.