GMOs in Campbell's Soup
Campbell's Soup has come under hot water from public misunderstanding surrounding bioengineered food ingredients. Bioengineered food ingredients come from genetically modified organisms (GMO crops). Campbell's Soup uses 33 bioengineered ingredients from four gmo crops, which are corn, sugar beets, soybeans, and canola. The following is a list of bioengineered ingredients that are used in different Campbell's Soup products.
Corn
- Corn (except sweet corn kernels)
- Corn chips
- Corn oil
- Corn flour
- Corn gluten
- Corn starch
- Corn syrup
- Dextrose
- High fructose corn syrup
- Maltodextrin
- Modified corn starch
- Modified waxy maize
Sugar beets
- Citric acid
- Sugar/Sucrose
- Sugar syrup
- Invert sugar
- Molasses
- Brown sugar
Soybeans
- Hydrolyzed soy protein
- Soybean flour
- Soy lecithin
- Soybean oil
- Soy protein concentrate
- Soy protein isolate
- Soybean hulls (fiber)
- Vegetable oil
Canola / Cottonseed
- Canola oil
- Cottonseed oil
- Flax seed
- Margarine
- Partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil
- Vegetable oil
When one of these ingredients are used in the product, the label will say contains a bioengineered food ingredient. The label will also say the ingredients from corn / soy / canola / sugar in this product come from genetically modified crops. Despite what's circulating in the media, lab grown meat is not considered a bioengineered food. Lab grown meat is both USDA and FDA approved, but is not sold in consumer packaged foods. Additionally, lab grown meat is extremely expensive and would not be used for cost cutting. On the contrary, lab grown meat would be sold at a significant premium, even above organic pasture raised chicken.
A landmark ruling struck down the USDA’s loophole that allowed ultra-processed foods to bypass the bioengineered ingredient disclosure requirements. As defined by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), a “bioengineered food ingredient” contains genetic material that has been modified through lab techniques not attainable in nature. Starting January 2022, food manufacturers have been required to disclose when they used an ingredient from a crop that was genetically engineered by including one of the following four disclosures.
- The text disclosure reads “contains a bioengineered food ingredient.” This will be on the label or the produce box.
- The symbol disclosure you see below on the screen.
- The electronic disclosure must include a statement such as “scan here for more food information” and then link to a page with the disclosure. The new ruling will remove this option.
- The text message disclosure must include the statement text [command word] to [number] for bioengineered food information.
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