Through the years that Okanagan Specialty Fruits worked on developing the Arctic apple — a fruit that is genetically modified so it doesn’t brown — company president Neal Carter knew it may be controversial with consumers.
Following the backlash against GMOs in the U.S, Carter told Food Dive the company decided to confront the controversy with transparency. As the apples were poised to hit store shelves last year, Okanagan prepared with a website spelling out the genetic modification for the apples and why. On the packaging, they included an 800-number for consumers to call for more information. And there’s a scannable QR code for the public to get more information.
“If I remember right, basically only two people looked up the QR code to get more information,” Carter told Food Dive. “So everybody thinks, ‘GMOs, consumers are all against that.’ But at the end of the day, they’re really not.”
The experience of Arctic apples is not unique. While there is a lot of talk and controversy about consumers being anti-GMO, many food products actually use GMO ingredients. Brands that present themselves as pro-GMO told Food Dive that consumers embrace their products as they are — especially when they explain why they use GMOs and how they make their items better.
“I don’t think it’s uppermost in their minds,” David Lipman, chief science officer of Impossible Foods, told Food Dive. “People are interested in the [GMO] Impossible Burger because it tastes more like meat.”
The International Food Information Council Foundation did a study earlier this year that was intended to measure consumer sentiment about the different proposed on-package symbols for GMO — or biologically engineered (BE) foods. And while it showed consumers prefer more information on a package label, it also indicated about half of them at least somewhat avoid GMO foods because of human health concerns, Alexandra Lewin-Zwerdling, IFIC vice president of research and partnerships, told Food Dive.
However, when asked what label claims they looked for in products, Lewin-Zwerdling said consumers ranked non-GMO before all natural and antibiotic free.
“It seems like less of a priority,” she said.
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