Our Campaign Goals

GMO Free road map of labeling and awareness requirements
The Ultimate Goal of our Campaign is to help Whole Foods recognize the importance to their customers that they advertise and work towards becoming an entirely GMO Free Retailer.

Whole Foods announced on Tuesday July 7, 2009 that their will be a Non GMO Label on their 365 company branded products by the end of 2009. As long time customers, we celebrate this first step. We are excited to see dozens of additional Non GMO product labels and customer education announcements that lead to a GMO Free Whole Foods.

If a GMO Free Whole Food is not an option, we are demanding that Whole Foods inform customers when any item in their stores may contain ingredients from GMO crops, with prominent point-of-purchase labels or another notification system (IE, color-coding). This includes a dairy & meat labeling system that animals are "Fed without GMOs".

GMO Free Plan and Checklist For Whole Foods

• 1. Whole Food announced July 7 labeling plan for 365 Branded Products

Future Announcements We Demand

• 2. Mandate all manufacturers follow Non GMO Standard
• 3. Change new policy for manufactures from encourage to mandate
• 4. Notify manufacturers that do not comply with mandate that their products will either be banned or labeled GMO
• 5. Create a GMO aisle and Inform Manufacturers if they do not comply with Non GMO Standard that their products will only be available in the GMO aisle
• 6. Target store sections with the highest contamination: Frozen Foods

Create a Non GMO Standard For non packaged goods:

• 7. Salad bar & soups
• 8. Bakery
• 9. Produce
• 10. Prepared foods and Deli
• 11. Introduce a dairy & meat label "Fed without GMOs"
• 12. Inform customers that most GMO crops are used for animal feed. Customers will buy more Organic meat dairy if they knew that Non-Organic animals eat almost 100% GMO soy and corn their whole lives
• 13. Do not buy produce from factory farms that produce both Organic and GMO crops as cross pollination and crop rotation results in GMO contamination of Organic crops.
• 14. Train employees with educational material and overall awareness of Non-GMO Label. Disclose challenges of a GMO Free Whole Foods

Customer educational material:

• 15. Non GMO signs in stores similar to organic, local & sustainable signs.
• 16. Create and give customers a National Whole Foods GMO Free shopping guide that list brands that will not comply with mandate.
• 17. Create a color coded map of each store with products that may have GMOs. This educates team members at the stores, allowing them to learn about GMOs and increases word of mouth.
• 18. National GMO awareness pamphlet that describing in general which sections of your stores may have GMO foods. Inform customers why this crisis exits.

Customers activation Challenges:

• 19. Inspire and alert consumers when they can mobilize to stop agriculture biotechnology attacks on safe and natural foods.
• 20. Emphasize this is an issues of political corruption of the FDA and Dept. of Agriculture in the U.S. and how European countries Ban or Label GMO foods.

Political and Legal Action

• 21. Work with the Dept. of Agriculture & FDA to demand regulation of GMOs
• 22. Create a legal fund for your Organic suppliers that are sued by Monsanto for patent infringement and other false charges

Whole Foods has 3 options for GMOs:
Option 1: "Stay the Course"
This famous phrase from the 2004 Presidential campaign on the failed U.S. Iraq Policy summarizes the same policy of Whole Foods that does not voluntarily inform customers where GMO foods are in their stores. Only labeling 10% of the products in the stores is "Staying the Course"

Option 2: "Discontinued Selling Products not confirmed Non GMO by the Manufacturer"
The Big Carrot Natural Food Market Example
Give all manufacturers a six month deadline to comply with the labeling process and then discontinue selling their products. In 2001, The Big Carrot Natural Food Market in Toronto, Ontario (Co Founder of the Non GMO Project), implemented a non-GMO purchasing policy after a year and a half of research. They simply discontinued those product lines that were not confirmed by the manufacturer to be non-GMO. It was a radical and very successful move for the store.

Option 3: Label GMO & Non-GMO
Label all foods that may be GMO, by section, brand, product category or aisle. A lot of options exist for how Whole Foods may handle this. As part of this GMO awareness effort, inform customers about the dangers of Soy, Corn derivatives, papaya. Educating customers will drive awareness towards the benefits or Organics.