Many years ago, I was a marketing manager at a global manufacturer of industrial marking and coding products. I also spent several years working with a bar code scanning manufacturer who was very involved in providing innovative automatic data capture solutions for a large number of challenging industries – including packaging. In my experiences working in these roles, I learned about how all manner of product was required to be marked or identified in some way. Our clients needed to mark individual products with expiration dates or best buy codes. They needed to identify entire lots or batches of products produced. They not only needed to mark the products, they needed to track them through the manufacturing and distribution process. Today, even the U.S. government tracks parts and assets used throughout the military with item unique identification codes (IUID) throughout their full life cycle of usage. Whether for compliance to various regulations or conscientious safety reasons, these identification marks are made on parts and products from glass to metals to pharmaceuticals and even food products. Today, you only need to look on the bottom of any can of soda to see a small inkjet print providing this identification. Open your fridge and look at a container of milk or juice – you’ll likely find another inkjet or laser mark providing the product’s expiration date. These marks are everywhere. We rely on them to keep us safe.
Example identification mark as printed on typical juice box with batch, expiry, country of manufacture, and other information. This article proposes that the food industry could easily add three additional characters to identify various products as “GMO,” for far less than one penny. In fact, a typical industrial small character inkjet printer may print up to 85 million marks per single liter of ink – with one liter of ink priced at only $90 on today’s market. Most food manufacturers and distributors already have this type of equipment in place on their production lines.
Time and time again, pro-GMO food manufacturers present the suggestion that requiring labeling on GMO-containing foods is too cumbersome, expensive, and unproductive. They suggest there are a great many hardships that must be overcome before the adoption of GMO labeling could be fully implemented – that the cost of food would soar, small producers would be overtaken with burdensome cost, and some retailers may be unable to accommodate mandated regulations. The real truth to the cost myth associated with labeling GMO foods is that the biotech and food industry have been feeding us lies designed to emotionally impact voting participants. They know that we are all affected by the fears associated with rising prices or economic hardship. They know that these lies influence voters and have been effective in defeating both Prop 37 in California and I-522 in Washington in the past two years.
I am here to share some of the truth behind these labeling lies. I have worked in the identification industry for well over a decade and the most constant thing I’ve learned in this time is that just about every company has a need to produce some kind of identification for tracking every product they manufacture. The framework for this level of identification is already in place for most manufacturers – especially those within the food industry. Regulations and industry quality standards require most foods to be tracked by production batch, provide an expiration date, and more, so that safety concerns can be controlled quickly and thoroughly in the event a recall becomes necessary. Most of these manufacturers, and even many distributors, already possess the identification equipment to make these marks on products and packages within their facilities.
There is absolutely no hardship in requiring such manufacturers or distributors to add three characters to their existing identification mark. In fact, we’re talking far less than a single penny to produce millions of such markings. In this industry, our customers often look at a metric defined as the cost per mark. This takes into account the actual cost of the proportion of ink, or other necessary material, required to produce actual marks on a customer’s packages. Of course, we also consider the cost of maintenance and other important factors, but remember, these guys already have this type of equipment sitting in their production/distribution facilities, right now. They don’t have to go and buy a new machine – it’s likely already there and has been printing batch, expiry or best buy date codes for years. They just need to update the equipment’s existing programs to include three little letters, “G-M-O.” I asked for estimated “cost per mark” figures from a number of companies on LinkedIn. I would like to quote one leading manufacturer’s quoted cost per mark metric to ensure you understand how minuscule this labeling cost really is, “85 million marks per liter of ink with one liter of ink approx. $90.” This cost is projected for small character inkjet marking, however another marking manufacturer suggested laser might be the best method of coding such information because these marks are impossible to tamper with after printing. Either way a company might chose to go, the cost is not a factor. Laser doesn’t use ink and the cost of ink to produce three additional characters alongside existing individual product coding is a non-issue! Take 85 million marks and divide this number by three and you’ll agree we’re talking well under a penny for basic GMO labeling per item.
So how is it that representatives from the Grocery Manufacturers’ Association and big biotech corporations continue to threaten voters with increased cost myths? How do these distributors or manufacturers suffer from any hardship in adding three additional small characters to their existing coding process? They only get away with this ruse because most people have no way to know or understand the actual cost of such things. Why would an individual even care about the story behind the tiny marks on packages they encounter every day? I didn’t until I entered the identification industry many, many years ago. Seriously, think about these facts and share this article so that others may also understand the issue of cost is a myth and what’s worse, I believe this is a well known truth throughout the packaging industry by its biggest stakeholders.
These companies don’t need to incur costs redesigning packages or producing fancy new labels. They don’t even need to provide extensive information, because for most consumers it only matters if a product contains GMO ingredients – not what percentage is present or specifically what ingredients are classified as GMO. Three little characters printed by existing manufacturing equipment on individual product packages solves the debacle completely and without additional cost.
The real cost is the perception and recognition that these foods may not be “substantially equivalent” as the industry would like us to believe. Ultimately, they are afraid that more of us will stop buying these products if such a label is enforced and mandated. If it becomes even easier for us to avoid it because it’s clearly labeled. If this “hyped up” issue becomes a reality that is spelled out on packages where consumers notice – if it’s mandated by state-level or federal government – then it must not be just a bunch of hullabaloo!
A close family friend once said to me in jest, “Well my kids haven’t started glowing yet, so I’m not really worried about it.” But, I guarantee that the presence of such labeling would give validation and credibility to growing consumer concern surrounding GMO foods and may give more shoppers, like my good friend, some pause within the store aisles. These are the REAL truths behind the industry’s myths. Many corporations have spent millions of dollars repeatedly to keep consumers in the dark – not because the actual labeling process is costly or burdensome, but because it may be the death of their profits and they know it.
Yours truly,
Muckraking Maven
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