As some of you may know, I’ve gotten myself a job. One that takes me away from my kitchen table office and plops me down into a nice little cubicle office. I love it and am thrilled to be able to put my non-Bachelor degree knowledge in social media to good use while helping to support my family.
Well, I’m doing social content creation for a brand whose name I will not mention. It’s a household name and one which has found themselves thrust directly into the middle of the GMO and I-522 controversy. If you don’t know what GMO’s are, it’s genetically modified organisms which is a new way to create food. Problem is, the health and environmental risks associated with GMO’s are highly controversial and honestly, quite inconclusive. Some studies claim negative results while others say there isn’t enough data to prove anything.
So, this not-to-be-named brand is the parent company to a couple of organic brands. And these organic brands are truly organic. They do NOT use GMO’s in ANY of their products. But…the parent brand has contributed to fighting I-522 (and you can find more information here)
And, because of this, all their brands are being treated by the GMO protesters as monsters.
I’d like to break this thing down for a moment because I feel, when I’m looking on these brands Facebook pages, that the protesters aren’t taking into consideration the ramifications of a state-by-state labeling issue.
Yes, we have a right to know what is in our food. Absolutely and without any doubt. We, the consumers, should have the right to choose what we are putting into our families bodies and the producers should make the ingredients transparent.
I’m totally all for that.
So is the company. Actually, so are many of the companies.
BUT…what I feel like the people who are up-in-arms aren’t recognizing is…
State-by-state labeling is exceptionally expensive. Package redesign for each state would increase the cost of every single food item. Which, by the time it would reach the shelves, ripe for the consumers picking…would make these products cost-prohibitive.
The cost of the organic products would sky-rocket. The average person who lived an organic lifestyle wouldn’t be able to afford their organic foods anymore.
However, labeling on a national level, wouldn’t make such a dramatic price increase. And, there would still be full disclosure leaving the consumer the right to choose. In the end, that’s what it’s about, right? The right to choose what we are putting into our bodies. Never mind that the air we breathe is killing us, the water we drink is killing us, the medicine we take to make us better has pretty crazy side effects, the meats we eat are killing us. But, whatever.
Anyway.
Does that NOT make sense? Same friendly label but with full-disclosure regarding what is inside that little package, still affordable vs. state-by-state repackaging, cost increase, starving families because this is what they wanted.
And, let’s talk briefly about using these FB pages as a sounding board. Um…stop it. Seriously. What the hell does a FB post about knitting have to do with GMO’s?? Or a FB post about Halloween? Really? Take your agenda and move it to your own Facebook page, that’s what it’s there for. Or email the company directly. Because really? The GMO trolling is getting out of hand. Yes, that is exactly what it is at this point…trolling.
You aren’t going to accomplish anything by leaving scathing comments on brand Facebook pages. You’re only going to get pre-approved responses by the company whose page you are trolling. So, stop it. STOP IT!! You’re wasting your Internet time.
I’ve been on way more organic product Facebook pages over the last few weeks than I ever have in my entire life. And it’s a variation of the same people writing a variation of the same thing on every single page.
Please, start thinking a little more practically instead of reactively. You want full-disclosure, right? I believe, based upon what I’ve been reading…the parent companies agree with the whole full-disclosure. But what you are failing to realize is that many of these companies are trying to LOOK OUT FOR YOUR WALLET!!!! Many of these companies you are protesting DO CARE. But, no one is listening because they are too busy tapping their fingers onto keyboards.
If these companies are forced to do state-by-state labeling…YOUR WALLET LOSES.
Prices sky-rocket to off-set the new labeling.
And then there is the whole…well, to keep the cost down to make the product affordable, despite the whole labeling issue, we, the company, are going to have to purchase lesser ingredients. SO…the quality of the foods will go down too.
I want to know what’s in my food, yes. I think full-disclosure should be on the label, absolutely.
But I also want to be able to afford to feed my family and I want the food they eat to be quality not crap.
Don’t you?
A final note: If I owned a company, I would be fighting the state-by-state labeling too. You know why? Because I’d want to keep my product at the same quality without having to raise the price. I’m looking at the companies who are fighting this on a state-by-state level as a good thing. I don’t understand why no one else would see it that way too.
Then again, I don’t eat organic, I just do work for a client who is and always has been all natural, all organic. CERTIFIED NON-GMO producers. All the time.