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Indybay Feature

Rally on Mission Safeway to Label GMOs!

800_rally-gmo-free-santa-cruz.jpg
Date:
Friday, March 07, 2014
Time:
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Event Type:
Protest
Organizer/Author:
Location Details:
Santa Cruz Safeway
2111 Mission St.
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Hi Santa Cruz GMO-Free folks,
Hope you join me and CALPIRG activists to rally on Safeway to Label GMOs!
~Tarah Locke, Founder of GMO-Free Santa Cruz

----------

What: A press conference/petitioning event calling on Safeway to label GMOs in their store brand products. Consumers will be calling on Safeway to label their products and there is also a shareholder resolution filed by Green Century Fund, which will come up at Safeway's Shareholder meeting in May. We will be dropping off petitions at 10-15 different stores the same day.

When:
March 7th 10:30 am

Where:
Santa Cruz
2111 Mission St.
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

Berkeley
1444 Shattuck Pl
Berkeley, CA 94709

San Diego
1702 Granet Ave
San Diego, CA 92109

Who:
Activists from CALPIRG and CALPIRG Students holding signs and petitioning
GMO-Free Santa Cruz Volunteers

Quick Summary

On March 8th, the anniversary of Whole Foods’ decision to honor customers’ wishes and adopt labeling of all products in their stores, we’ll hold press events calling on our grocery-chain targets to follow suit. We’ll highlight the grassroots product we’ve generated so far, and release a white paper compiling the growing number of companies taking action on GMOs.

Background: On March 8th, 2013, Whole Foods became the first major grocery chain to commit to GMO labeling of every product in its stores – a goal which it expects to achieve by 2018. This is perhaps the most high-profile of a recent spate of stories about companies responding to customer concerns about GMOs by either adopting better disclosure policies, or removing GMO ingredients from food products (for example, the removal of GMO ingredients from Cheerios).

This anniversary provides a perfect opportunity for us to draw media attention to our corporate campaign work – we’ll have good grassroots product, including petitions and coalition partners, to add heft to our call for these stores to adopt labeling. And to help show that there’s a strong business case for our targets to respond to customer demand, we’ll release a white paper that compiles the recent actions companies have taken on GMOs, including:

· General Mills taking Cheerios GMO-free.
· Post similarly going GMO-free with Grape-Nuts.
· Chiptole eliminating GMO ingredients in its food.

-----------------------------------------------

New 2014 California Label GMOs Legistlation:
What you can do:
CALL or VISIT your legislator now URGING them to endorse SB 1381!
Keep the conversation going. Tell everyone you know its our fundamental right to know, giving us the opportunity to make informed choices.
Visit http://labelgmos.org

Tarah Locke, Founder of GMO-Free Santa Cruz
Added to the calendar on Tue, Mar 4, 2014 7:14PM

Comments (Hide Comments)
by John Thielking
Safeway is being sold to Albertsons and neither company nor their parent companies are listed on the no on 37 donors list, located here: http://www.noprop37.com/donors/. Safeway's membership in the GMA is documented here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_26023.cfm. The Grocery Manufacturer's Association donated some $2 million to the no on 37 campaign and Safeway is a member of the GMA. But I should also point out that Whole Foods, a recent champion of GMO labeling, is a member of the Chamber of Commerce which recently sided with Exxon in claiming that it will be "easy" to adapt to the effects of climate change. For the quote on that go here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_26061.cfm.

Also, I should point out that neither Albertsons nor their parent company Cerberus Capital Management is listed on the GMA membership list published here: http://occupy-monsanto.com/tag/grocery-manufacturers-association/. So maybe things are looking up for Safeway.

I still buy Organic Pasta Sauce from Safeway despite the no on 37 funding controversy because Safeway produces "the last honest pasta sauce", to mangle a popular pizza joint's advertising jingle. Most other pasta sauce is just too watery and usually contains soy oil, yuck!
by Don't Be Cheesy
I've already read here on Indybay that you "still buy Organic Pasta Sauce from Safeway" ...

I didn't really care the first time I read that. Now I really don't care about your preferred pizza sauce.

I know you can make your points without being cheesy! HaHaHa.
by John Thielking
It is always best for people to state the bias behind their views. I suppose in the future I can refrain from making too specific a plug for a particular Safeway product. (Their frozen organic peas and frozen organic corn taste like cardboard by the way. I prefer to buy the peas and corn that I can get at Trader Joes or Whole Foods.) However, I think that I should always state that I am a Safeway customer and continue to be despite the calls from Yes on 37 campaigners to boycott Safeway because their trade association (the GMA) donated to "no on 37". I voted yes on Prop 37 when I had the chance. I also campaigned for Prop 37 and support mandatory labeling of GMOs and even outlawing of GMOs. Also a better example company to hold up to the light and say how great they are for pledging to go GMO free would be Trader Joes, rather than just Whole Foods. As of Dec 2013 Trader Joes finally stated in writing on their web site that all of their Trader (whatever) brands in all of their stores are now GMO free. The non-Trader Joes brands that they carry may still contain GMOs.
by John Thielking
Besides the fact that it may actually be MORE misleading to simply say that I am a customer of Safeway without making qualifying personal comments one way or the other, the quality of our food in the US probably deserves its own posting and discussion on a separate thread. Food quality is not a trivial issue and should not be confined to a discussion involving only personal comments and personal attacks. Controversies such as the fraudulent representation of "authentic virgin olive oil" as being 100% olive oil when it has been documented that up to 1/2 of the "olive oil" on the US market is mixed with GMO soy oil and then marketed as "pure" olive oil should also be discussed.
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