No GMO Label Doesn’t Mean No Genetic Engineering

America’s disclosure rules on bioengineered foods leave shoppers guessing—and an approaching court deadline will not close every gap. Action Alert!

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THE TOPLINE

• US disclosure rules exempt many foods and ingredients, leaving shoppers without a complete picture of how their food was produced.
• Certain gene-edited foods can avoid US disclosure, and upcoming EU rules will also exempt qualifying foods from GMO labeling.
• Court-ordered changes will address some US labeling gaps, but consumers still need clearer information and stronger scrutiny of genetically engineered foods.

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A food package carries no bioengineered disclosure. Does that mean no genetic engineering went into the food?

No. USDA’s bioengineered food disclosure standard leaves entire categories of genetically engineered foods and ingredients outside mandatory disclosure.

Easing restrictions on natural substances with credible histories of safe use makes sense. Yet natural products face persistent calls for tighter regulation, alongside efforts to suppress truthful information about their benefits. Meanwhile, novel technologies that fundamentally alter our food are riding a wave of deregulation—even as their implications demand rigorous scrutiny and full transparency. These priorities are backwards.

A Narrow Definition, Wide Exclusions

Under the current rule, foods generally require disclosure when: 1) they contain genetic material modified through laboratory recombinant-DNA techniques, 2) the modification could not otherwise arise through conventional breeding or nature, and 3) the modified material is detectable.

There are a host of exclusions:

• Restaurants and food service: meals can contain engineered ingredients without this disclosure.
• Very small manufacturers: businesses with annual receipts below $2.5 million are exempt.
• Accidental presence: up to 5% of each ingredient may be bioengineered if its presence is “inadvertent” or technically unavoidable.
• Animal feed: meat, milk, and eggs do not require disclosure solely because animals ate engineered feed.
• Refined ingredients: oils, sugars, and other ingredients can avoid disclosure when modified genetic material is undetectable.
• Processing aids: qualifying incidental additives present at insignificant levels with no final technical or functional effect are excluded.
• Certain meat, poultry, and egg products generally fall outside coverage when those ingredients predominate, including after water, broth, or stock.
• Many alcoholic beverages: products subject to federal alcohol labeling law fall outside this standard.

Nearly A Quarter of Your Chips

Consider a hypothetical bag of corn chips containing 80% cornmeal, 19% refined soybean oil, and 1% salt.

If 5% of the cornmeal is inadvertently mixed-in bioengineered corn, that represents 4% of the chips. Add oil entirely from engineered soybeans that meets non-detectability requirements: another 19% originates from GE crops.

That is 23% of the product’s weight originating from engineered crops, quite legally without a bioengineered disclosure.

This can also allow proteins made using genetically engineered yeast or bacteria (through a process called “precision fermentation”) to avoid disclosure, depending on what remains in the finished ingredient.

“Could Happen Naturally” is Doing Enormous Work

A CRISPR-produced food can escape disclosure if its genetic modification could otherwise be achieved through conventional breeding or found in nature. But who decides if a modification could arise through conventional breeding or nature? Essentially it is the food company that makes the decision, and the federal government can later audit their records to examine the company’s conclusions.

These studies call into question if any genetic editing of foods can really be “natural” if the genetic tinkering produces non-localized effects in the organism. Yet large swaths of foods that have been genetically manipulated escape any kind of disclosure.

Europe’s Parallel Retreat

The European Union’s new genomic techniques regulation will come into effect after July 17, 2028.  As you can see in the table below,both approaches allow certain gene-edited foods to reach consumers without a label disclosing how they were produced.

Situation	United States	European Union
Certain gene-edited foods	No disclosure required when the genetic modification could otherwise occur through conventional breeding or nature.	From July 2028, qualifying NGT-1* plants and their foods will not require GMO labeling. Authorities must first verify that they qualify.
Accidental mixing with engineered ingredients	Up to 5% of each ingredient can avoid disclosure if the presence is inadvertent or technically unavoidable.	The comparable allowance is 0.9% of each ingredient for authorized GM material. It also requires accidental or technically unavoidable presence. This threshold does not limit the separate NGT-1 exemption.
Meat, milk, or eggs from animals fed engineered feed	No disclosure required solely because the animal ate GE feed.	Likewise, the animal’s diet alone does not trigger GMO labeling of these products.
Engineered inputs used only to help process food	Qualifying processing aids can avoid disclosure when present at insignificant levels with no technical or functional effect in the finished food.	Qualifying genetically modified processing aids—and foods made with their help—also fall outside GMO labeling requirements. The legal conditions differ, so this is not a blanket exemption for every fermentation-derived ingredient.
Refined oils or sugars from engineered crops	Currently, these can avoid disclosure if modified DNA is undetectable and the documentation requirements are met.	An important difference: refining generally does not remove the labeling requirement for ingredients from crops covered by EU GMO rules. Products from qualifying NGT-1 plants will have a separate exemption.

*The EU’s new rules create a category called NGT-1, covering plants made using “new genomic techniques,” such as gene editing, that meet legal criteria for equivalence to conventionally bred plants; from July 2028, foods from these plants will not require GMO labeling.

What Changes in 2028?

• The “we couldn’t detect it” exclusion. Some ingredients from engineered crops currently avoid disclosure because tests cannot detect modified DNA. The appeals court rejected that reasoning: failing to detect something does not prove it is absent.
• The current QR-code and text-message options. Companies will no longer be able to rely on those provisions as written. USDA will need to address the barriers shoppers face when trying to access that information.

The concrete effects of these changes are uncertain. USDA could adopt a new minimum amount that triggers labeling, and QR codes are not permanently banned. The other exemptions remain.

Consumers deserve clear information about how their food was produced, plain and simple. When companies play God with nature, shoppers should not have to play detective with dinner.

Action Alert!