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The Silk brand, which produces soy, coconut and almond “milks”, is adding a new angle to its green marketing that it hopes will help it recuperate from the bad press it received in 2009.

The company, which is owned by the largest dairy company in the US, Dean Foods, announced that all its products have been officially verified by the Non-GMO Project.

The Non-GMO Project is a non-profit collaboration of manufacturers, retailers, distributors, farmers, seed companies and consumers that is dedicated to “ensuring the sustained availability of non-GMO food and beverage choices.”

Dean Foods was heavily criticized in 2009 for switching from organic to conventional soy beans without clearly labeling it with different packaging.

For many years, Silk soymilk was certified organic. In 2009, they introduced a “natural” line – the soymilk was made from conventionally grown soybeans (where pesticides are used), but the packaging was identical to the organic line  that retailers and customers were long accustomed to other than the absence of the USDA Organic seal. Even the price retailers charged was the same!

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) called for a boycott of Silk products because even “certified organic” soybeans were sourced from countries with unacceptable labor and certification standards including Brazil and China.

In August 2009, the Silk website claimed that all soy beans were in fact sourced from North America including organic soybeans.