Proposition 37 is a current California ballot initiative that if passed would require foods that may have been produced with genetically modified ingredients to be labeled as such. Some are calling it a possible watershed moment in the fight for national labeling of GMOs. Others feel it would bring complexity, added expense and confusion for consumers.
So where does WhiteWave stand?
While we support the underlying principles of Prop. 37, we choose to throw our support behind national initiatives that will help consumers in all fifty states. Our brands are inherently part of the GMO labeling push:
- Our Silk brand’s entire plant-based beverage portfolio is verified by the Non-GMO Project, and proudly carries the Non-GMO Verified logo.
- Our Horizon Organic brand has been certified organic for more than 20 years. People have come to know and trust that the certified organic label means their food is produced without the use of pesticides, antibiotics, added growth hormones and GMOs.
Across our entire portfolio we believe consumers have the right to make informed choices about the foods they eat, and as mentioned earlier labeling is a very big part of that. Today 85 percent of our products are non-GMO, and we are working to move additional ingredients in our portfolio to non-GMO.
Because of our recent IPO filing we are currently limited in what we can say about anything else as it relates to our company, as we are in a legally mandated quiet period.
If you have questions on this issue related to Dean Foods, please contact them directly – DeanFoods@CaSupport.com
And what national initiative is that? This sounds like alot of pr crap to me. Anyone with a computer can find out anything they want these days. The bottom line is your parent company, Dean Foods owns Silk and Horizon. They earn money from your brand. Anyone taking a simple Economics class can connect the dots/follow the money. Buying Silk and/or Horizon lines the pockets of Dean Foods. Dean Foods spent (so far) $253,000 to defeat Prop 37. They could have done the right thing and spent that money to label their products, but instead they decided to lose the consumers trust (again!). As you know there is a major call to boycott you and your cronies who insist on keeping whats in your products a secret.
http://www.thedoctorstv.com/main/show_synopsis/1004?section=feature&title=What are GMOs?
Check out the Doctors program Friday – America’s Medical Dream Team, teaching Americans how to read the GMO produce stickers. Even they do not appear to know that the GMO label has NEVER been used.
That is how deceptive and misleading the present American GMO labeling is!
You even fooled them, Silk. Since you oppose a simple label which would clear up the obvious confusion, I will have to put my shopping dollar behind a merchant who supports honesty, and integrity.
Call a GMO a GMO!!!
50 other countries already do label.
If you are actively opposing adding a few words to the ingredients list, a simple label that gives us a fundamental right to know what we are feeding our families, then what else are you hiding?
We had thought – mistakenly – that your Silk soy milk was organic and not genetically modified. Our family and friends have switched to Soy Dream as your soy milk is sadly neither. Your company’s inability to provide a top-quality product is disappointing. Cutting corners like this does not speak or bode well for any company that seeks to remain an integral part of the “premier” core of health foods. As people’s interest and knowledge about nutrition and the dietary impacts of questionable foods increases, the sustainability of companies that choose momentary, short-sided profits over long-term credibility will become quite tenuous, to say the least.
I will no longer purchase anything you are affiliated with.
This is probably the most important proposition on the CA ballot ever. To not stand up and support this is insane.
From a customer that bought your products every week…bye bye.
I’ll spread the word to all my friends as well.
Mitchel Balmayne
Shame on you, Silk, for hiding behind the cloak that your beverages are non-GMO. The rest of your stuff isn’t apparently from what you say above.
I happened to like your beverages, but I will not buy them if the money I spend on them goes to line the pockets of the likes of Monsanto and Dean Foods, who wish to add poisons to the food but not tell us which ones contain them. Someone stands to lose $$$ so it is worth $235,000 to them to defeat Prop 37.
The tactics are apparent and we are not falling for them. Cry foul if you want, but it is not. Our children’s lives are at stake. We will not support you if you don’t take it up with Dean Foods.
As was said above, “A GMO is a GMO, so label it!!
Prop 37 is the most important piece of legislation regarding GMO right now, it needs your support, since it will be a first very IMPORTANT step towards being accepted nation wide…so please, do something and don’t try to avoid it by saying you support ” national initiatives”. What national initiatives? can you specify? Thanks!
PS: I don’t see your name here: Endorsements for YES on 37 http://www.carighttoknow.org/endorsements
Helena, Thanks for all the posts on Facebook as well, we appreciate your passion on this. We’re proud to support the Just Label It! campaign, which calls for a more universal national labeling of GMO foods. And as leaders in the organic food industry, we’re constantly working to support the growth of organic agriculture and farming, as well as helping to educate on the benefits of organic foods.
Thank you again for your feedback.
Cindy,
Unfortunately, we’re pretty limited in what we can say about our relationship to Dean Foods due to our company’s (WhiteWave Foods) recent IPO filing. We’re actually in a legally mandated quiet period. However If you have further questions about Dean Foods, please contact them directly – DeanFoods@CaSupport.com
Hi Mitchel,
Thanks for the comment. Just want to reiterate the point that we don’t oppose Prop. 37; we just choose to focus our efforts toward national initiatives. Initiatives that benefit consumers in all fifty states. Thanks again for your comments, and feedback.
Hey John and Marleen,
To be clear, our Silk brand’s entire plant-based beverage portfolio is verified non-GMO by the Non-GMO Project. We don’t utilize GMO ingredients.
Hi Jessica,
At WhiteWave (which includes Silk) we absolutely believe consumers should have a choice when it comes to food, and labeling is definitely part of that. We are not opposed to a GMO label, we just choose to focus our efforts toward national initiatives. Initiatives that benefit consumers in all fifty states.
Hi Inge,
Unfortunately, we’re pretty limited in what we can say about our relationship to Dean Foods due to our company’s (WhiteWave Foods) recent IPO filing. We’re actually in a legally mandated quiet period. However If you have further questions about Dean Foods, please contact them directly – DeanFoods@CaSupport.com
We do appreciate your feedback and passion on the issue. Thanks for checking out the blog, and sharing your thoughts.
I will not be buying products from companies whose parent company spends so much money on preventing GMO labeling. This includes Silk and Horizon. In addition, the “we just choose to focus our efforts toward national initiatives” justification sounds hollow.
Here is the bottom line. Its all about trust and right now your parent company has lost mine and many others. I get it, you cannot say anything becuase of legal stuff, but I can! Americans are sick and tired of this new way of running the government and doing business. Where is the transparency? Our elected officials sold us out and WE KNOW IT! We have to take back our government and demand that the makers of our food be transparent as well. Spending money to defeat Prop 37 is a bad idea. Social media allows us to communicate like never before. We decided to boycott and that includes Silk and Horizon. Why? Because of Dean Foods. I suggest you persuade them to change their mind and use that money to label their products or they will be sitting on the shelf longer than they expected. There are plenty of other companies we can buy from who don’t have a probem letting us know what we are feeding our kids. I will support them 100%. Remember, it’s all about trust and Dean Foods lost mine.
Inge,
Again, thanks for the feedback and passion. While we again have to reiterate that we cannot discuss our relationship with Dean Foods due to the legally mandated quiet period, we do appreciate you reaching out and sharing with us directly.
I hope in the future you are able to show us some evidence that you have taken this matter up with Dean Foods and are doing something substantial to show an honest effort to support GMO labeling so I can again purchase your products. I like the almond milk very much and it has been very disappointing that your parent company has spent so much money to fight honest labeling in California. This is too important an issue to disregard.
When I read that you had thrown yourself behind Monsanto and their ilk against GMO labeling I immediately went to my refrigerator and poured a newly opened carton of Silk soy milk down the drain. I will never buy a Silk or Horizon product again.
Americans have a right to know what goes into their food and where it comes from. Once they do they will be able to make better choices and hopefully be healthier for it.
As far as I know there is no national initiative. The FDA ignored over a million signatures and the senate voted down states rights to label GMO’s http://theintelhub.com/2012/06/22/senate-rejects-amendment-giving-states-the-right-to-require-gmo-labeling/…
With so many ties between big AG/ Big Food and Monsanto, et al, there is no way consumers are going to trust anything coming out of Washington or otherwise. Consumers are taking things into their own hands now. I was disappointed when the small independent organic companies started to sell out to the large food giants. In situations like this, being a part of them definitely hurts you. And by the way, I am from MA…the whole country is watching and supporting California prop 37!
I quit buying Silk products awhile back. Now with the acquisition by an anti-GMO labeling parent company (Dean)…I am even more strongly motivated to spread the “bad”word about Silk/Horizon. It costs nothing to add the letters GMO in front of an ingredient. It is honesty in labeling and if a company is not willing to be honest in labeling…then I am not willing to purchase their products. I will continue to crusade for LabelGMOs and vote yes on Prop. 37!
If your preference is to support a national initiative, then why are you spending $$ to fight the local one. Take that money and fund a national campaign. Put your money where your mouth is.
Even so, auto manufacturers deal just fine with varying state regulations. So do beverage bottlers. If your food meets the strictest regulations (as might be in CA), then produce and label to those and you’ll be just fine everywhere else!
So just what are these national initiatives WhiteWave (aka Dean Foods) throws its support behind? Could it be the fruitless, oft-repeated petitions by thousands of citizens to the FDA calling for GMO labeling–which the FDA, headed by former Monsanto employees, simply chucks in the virtual dumpster? Is Deans Foods firmly behind Americans spinning their wheels again and again petitioning an indifferent agency that in no way represents Americans, while Dean Foods is left free to continue churning out risky, unlabeled GMOs?
Your call for a national initiative so that the other forty-nine states not be left out is touching. But Dean Foods knows perfectly well that ballot measures which pass in California, the eighth largest economy in the WORLD, almost always have a nationwide effect. Labeling in California will rapidly become labeling across America; and that, sadly, is the real reason Dean Foods is spending a whopping $357,000 in California to kill Proposition 37. That money could easily have been spent on GMO labeling with leftovers for charity!
This “confused” consumer refuses to be saved by Dean Foods from the “complexity” of reading MAY CONTAIN GMOs on packaging. I will no longer buy Silk; I dumped my last two cartons down the drain this morning. I also quit buying “all natural,” all-GMO Kashi. I refuse to buy products from companies, organic or otherwise, that have deceived me and do not respect my right to know if there are GMOs in the foods I buy.
I’m extremely disappointed by the double speak in this post. First of all, it is worded confusingly, rather than being straight foward for or against the proposition. Secondly, the content, once you get past the double talk is a let down.
If whitewave and your parent company was truly supportive of MANDATORY GMO lableling, you’d be supporting every intance of it, and certainly your company would be strenously objecting towards your parent company’s decision to oppose the proposition.
It’s not enough to be in favour of opt in labling that can be used to add value to some brands while shielding others in the corporate family from fill disclosure. People want the right to know what their eating, and as your company is clearly not behind this initiative, i will be making a point of no longer purchasing your brand.
Well thank you Silk and Horizon Organics for not standing behind prop 37. You’ve shown me once and for all that I really should be supporting my local farmers instead of big ag, and I’ve found a nice family with healthy cows that is going to supply us with all the real organic GMO free milk we need. Sincerely, a former loyal customer.
Supporting CA Prop 37 is equivalent to supporting a national measure.The market here is sufficiently large to make labels simply make sense on a national scale.
I fear that WW has chosen to support a “feel good” national measure that has no teeth as a PR move while refusing to support Prop 37 because it actually has a real chance of passing this year. Just Label It is great, but it needs teeth.
Prop 37 provides those teeth.
WW should make a public statement formally disagreeing with their parent company’s decision to oppose labeling. Otherwise, the Cornucopia Institute flyer that is circulating will be exposed to the vast millions who follow the Prop 37 campaign (which has nearly 2 million email supporters all by itself, not including Organic Consumer’s Association, Mercola, etc.) and WW will lose a significant amount of money as their former customers move over to brands that support the right to know if our food has been genetically engineered and aren’t afraid to proclaim it.
Hi Judson,
As stated in the blog, we’re limited in what we can say as it relates to our relationship with Dean Foods due to our IPO filing. Thanks for checking out the blog, and passing on the feedback.
El,
Again, we’re pretty limited in what we can say about our relationship with Dean Foods due to the IPO filing. As to your questions about the national initiatives we support – we support the Just Label It! campaign, and the Non-GMO Project. Here are links to their sites if you’re interested in learning more:
- http://www.justlabelit.org
- http://www.nongmoproject.org
As a consumer who has used your product for many years, I am now boycotting all of your products until you remove all GMO’s and correctly label everything. I cannot and will not support a company who lies to it’s customers.