“ATTACK OF THE CLONES” HITS SANTA MONICA VON’S

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 8, 2002
“ATTACK OF THE CLONES” HITS SANTA MONICA VON’S
IN PROTEST OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED FOOD
As part of a National Day of Action, Consumers in over 100 Cities Leaflet and Protest Outside Safeway (Von’s), Shaw’s, Publix, Food Lion and Food Emporium
Los Angeles - Today food activists in over 100 cities across the U.S., including Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Los Angeles and Minneapolis, protested in front of leading supermarket chains to voice their concerns about genetically engineered foods. Here in LA, activists in “clone” costumes and make-up shopped a Santa Monica Von’s supermarket, a Safeway-owned chain, on the lookout for genetically engineered ingredients in Von’s store brand products. Outside the supermarket, a festive crowd rallied with an 8 foot corn, banners and signs, and a band played on a near-by flat bed truck.

“We are here to put Von’s and the Safeway Company on notice that American consumers do not want to be guinea pigs in this genetic experiment with our food,” said Brett Doran of GE Free LA. “If Whole Foods, Wild Oats and Trader Joe’s can listen to their customers and remove untested and unwanted GE ingredients, so can Safeway.”

A new nationwide alliance, the GE-Free Markets Coalition, and regional anti-GE food groups organized today’s National Day of Action as part of a multi-year campaign to get GE foods out of grocery stores. Similar supermarket campaigns in Europe and Japan have forced GE foods off the market. Consumer and environmental groups are demanding that Safeway (parent company of Von’s) and other leading supermarket chains remove all GE food ingredients from their store brand products. U.S. supermarket chains Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Trader Joe’s have already responded to consumer pressure by pledging to remove GE ingredients from their store brand products.

“Von’s and other Safeway stores need to decide whose interests they represent — their customers’ or the biotech industry’s,” said Heather Whitehead of Greenpeace. “The American people have spoken — they don’t want to eat GE foods.” Two recent national polls have shown that upwards of 90 percent of U.S. consumers want GE foods labeled so that they can avoid them.

Activities in today’s Day of Action ranged from in-store actions to handing out flyers to a plane flying over a Publix supermarket in Sarasota, Florida with a banner reading “Publix – Stop Gene-Altered Ingredients!” This national supermarket campaign was launched in March by the member groups of the GE-Free Markets Coalition. The Coalition says it will continue to pressure the retailers until they remove all GE ingredients from their store brand products.

The coalition successfully targeted national retailer Trader Joe’s last year. In November of 2001, after more than a year of pressure, Trader Joe’s announced it would begin immediately to source only non-GE ingredients for all its store brand products. Trader Joe’s has stores in 13 states and derives 85 percent of its profits from its store brands.

CONTACT: Heather Whitehead, Greenpeace, (415) 999-7404 mobile; Brett Doran, GE Free LA (310) 428-0772.