Genetic segregation  
- An interview with Malcolm Walker

Malcolm Walker founded  the Iceland Frozen Food company 28 years ago; it now has a turnover of £1.7 billion that employs 20,000 people. As a member of Greenpeace, he has taken up the crusade against genetically modified (GM) food, selling non-GM lines in all his stores. In an interview with David Buffin Malcolm Walker explains why. 

Background to public concern
The use of genetic engineering is being hailed by industry as a modern miracle with benefits to medicine and agriculture. The agricultural biotechnology market in the European Union, including biopesticides, feed protein, transgenic plants and animal nutrition was worth US$890 million in 1995 and is projected to increase by about 25% a year, to US$3,920 million in 2002. For this reason companies involved in the technology are determined to promote their products despite serious misgivings expressed by the general public. 
    Genetic engineering involves the extraction and insertion of genes from one species to another to create crops and animals with specific and otherwise unattainable characteristics such as herbicide and pest resistant plants. Flavr Savr tomatoes, for example, contain fish genes to prolong shelf life, and Roundup Ready soya beans contain genes from soil bacteria, cauliflower mosaic virus and petunias to make them herbicide-resistant.
    There is increasing consumer concern about GM-foods. This has particularly focused around soya where a US GM variety has been available for a few years. Soya is found in many food products and therefore cannot easily be separated for the consumer. This creates an affront to the purchaser because, regardless of the environmental issues, consumer choice has been taken away.
    There is now the prospect of herbicide-tolerant oilseed rape, beet crops and maize being grown commercially in the UK. This raises a number of serious environmental concerns:

• increased risk of weeds naturally developing resistance to the herbicide. 
• genetically engineered herbicide resistant genes spreading to related weed species. 
• herbicide tolerant crops becoming weeds in nearby crops, or the same field in subsequent seasons.

All these factors may in the long-term lead to an increase in herbicide use which runs counter to UK government policy that encourages 'pesticide minimisation'. The claim that herbicide-tolerant crops will reduce the quantity of older, more toxic herbicides, used by farmers may only be true in the short term.

Why are you concerned about GM-food? 
I had never heard of GM food until about two years ago. Then we received a number of letters on the issue from around the country. This got me interested. I started asking questions of our technical staff, and the more I found out, the more it bothered me. I wrote back to the customers, saying I agree with you, this sounds terrible, we will see what we can do about it. In the beginning I suppose we were just seeking good public relations. We wrote a letter to the Times, which provoked hundreds of letters in response.
    One was from Dr Michael Antonio, clinical geneticist at Guy's Hospital in London, who wrote: "Genetic engineering is unpredictable, unstable and dangerous and the risks are not worth taking, mistakes have already been made which have affected health and the environment." When someone with his scientific background wrote in this way, I started to take the matter more seriously.
    Now the biotech industry is developing a 'sterile seed' which will only reproduce once thus preventing farmers from sowing and replanting. Farmers cannot keep any seed back for the following season, which is not good news for the Third World.
    The best summary I have seen is actually in the introduction of the book Jurassic Park: "Biotechnology promises the greatest revolution in human history. By the end of the decade (2000) it will have outdistanced atomic power and computers in its effect on our everyday lives."

What practical steps did you take to address this concern?
Our aim was to provide non-GM produced food. At present the main GM crop is soya. Given that soya is in 60% of processed food including-bread, beer, biscuits, baby food and  ready-prepared dishes-segregation would seem to be difficult. We started by replacing soya flour with alternatives such as wheat flour. We asked our suppliers to stop using soya-oil, and use rape-seed oil instead. We have become experts in this field. We were told by others in the industry that it was impossible to provide non-GM food-but where there is a demand, there will be a supply. We easily found suppliers of non-GM soya bean, first in Canada, and later in Brazil. We are currently developing sources of supply with our traditional supply markets in the US.

Is non-GM food involving soya going to become more expensive?
At the moment there is no difference in price. Even if there was, there is so little soya in any one food item that its price has little impact on the final product.

It is likely other crops may be grown using GM technology, how will you continue segregating?
As a direct result of our work, I predict the Soya Bean Association of North America will segregate their crops later this year. If we can achieve this, then segregation in other crops will follow. If we lose the battle with soya, we will lose the battle with all crops.

Are you trying to influence other retailers to follow your stance?
I think that we have a competitive edge, and I will not deny that is one reason we have segregated GM-produce. But now we have the advantage, we are quite willing to share it with other retailers. I have already written to all the other super stores offering to share our supply sources with them. I have good reason to believe that some will follow our position.

Have you been lobbying the UK government?
The government's position states there is no evidence that the introduction of GM-crops presents a risk to consumers or the environment. The agriculture ministers do not mind so long as there is labelling. Many commentators suggest labelling, but how can you label when there is no segregation? All you can say is that this product may contain GM-produced soya. Well, that does not help anybody. Labelling is a red herring. Segregation has got to come first, then you can label.
    We are also lobbying for a GM-tolerance, although it is probably too late. [In the European Union (EU) there is a tolerance of 5% presence of non-organic vegetables or material in an organic product. To allow for slight contamination with non-organic produce and limited contamination of an organic crop by pesticide drift. Malcolm Walker wants the same practical allowance for non-GM crops.]
    Now, there is a difference between us saying this product does not contain any GM-ingredients, or saying this product is GM-free. Proposed EU legislation will require produce to be GM-free. This is impossible to achieve as scientists can now detect down to one molecule of GM-DNA contamination in produce.
    We have recently met with Lord Donoughue, the junior Agriculture Minister who supported the view that tolerances would be practical. He said it is the European Commission who will make decisions in this area, ultimately the British Government had very little control: "Laws are made in Europe, we will just have to comply, and if that's impractical well that is just tough," the minister lamented*.
    We were at the recent Agra Europe Conference on GM-foods and met those responsible for GM regulations in other EU member states. They all agreed that we need practical tolerances in order to give consumers choice.

Are you concerned about the approval process for GM-crops?
There is a double standard between approval for GM-crops and the approval required for GM-medicines. With GM-medicines researchers have to understand the whole DNA structure of the organism that they intend change, and the impacts of the changes. That will include unpredictable scenarios like toxins, or foreign proteins, that are, or may be, produced.
    In the case of GM-crops, all that matters is that the nutritional composition of the ensuing crop is similar to the non-GM variety.
    The Agriculture Minister, Jack Cunningham, says that GM-crop science is well understood. The science is well understood: what is not well understood is individual applications of the science to the plants that have been changed genetically, and the long-term effects, which they cannot predict.
    Now the European Commission is proposing a seven year monitoring analysis of the impact of GM-crops. But nobody has yet decided what monitoring should be done. Are the companies going to look for all the possible changes, or will they look for probable changes, will they look at the crop itself, or the impact on the environment? The criteria for monitoring has not been decided yet. So what we are saying is the government is looking to give approval to GM-crops before governments and the EC have got together and agreed what the regulations and control should be. So you have actually got products coming to the market before controls are in place-that is a concern.

What would you like to see in future?
We would like to stop GM-crops being planted in the EC till more research is done. To be honest, we have actually achieved a great deal already. We have now established segregation, other retailers are starting to offer non-GM products that give consumers choice. Our long-term aim is that we change the attitude of the biotech industry to say, "let's put the consumer first."

* Update: The UK government did make proposals to the Commission based on Iceland's views. These were reviewed and the principle of practical tolerances was accepted on 26 May.

Malcolm Walker is Chairman and Chief Executive of Iceland Frozen Foods Ltd.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 40, June 1998, page 6]