Food Industry Giants to Wage Legal Battle to Defeat Vermont's Landmark GMO Labeling Law

As pro-labeling advocates were cheering Vermont’s passage of a GMO labeling bill on Thursday, a powerful food industry lobbying group announced its plans to file a federal lawsuit to overturn the law.

Governor Peter Shumlin’s signature yesterday marked a landmark moment as Vermont became the first state to enact a no-strings attached law mandating the labeling of genetically modified food and preventing GMO foods from being labeled as “natural.”

In response, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which represents food and beverage industry giants like Pepsico and Cargill and poured millions into defeating measures in California and Washington, said it would sue the state — likely an unsurprising development to Vermont, which has already set up a Food Fight Fund site to “mount a powerful defense” against legal battles.

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The GMA issued a statement on Thursday cheering GMO crops as having “important benefits for people and our planet” and calling Vermont’s law “critically flawed and not in the best interests of consumers.”

The statement also included an announcement from the group that it would be starting a legal battle against Vermont, saying that government “has no compelling interest in warning consumers about foods containing GM ingredients, making this law’s legality suspect at best.”

“In light of this fact, in the coming weeks GMA will file suit in federal court against the state of Vermont to overturn the law.”

The GMA statement urges support instead for labeling legislation from Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo, which has been dubbed the Deny Americans the Right to Know (DARK) Act and criticized as a “Monsanto, Koch Brothers alliance.”

The GMA is also investing current efforts to discredit the film Fed Up, which opens in theaters on Friday, and is described as “the film the food industry doesn’t want you to see.”