For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s Genetic Engineering page and our Millions Against Monsanto page.
Thousands of products in the typical American grocery store, from cereals to corn chips, contain genetically modified ingredients. But the average shopper wouldn’t know it from their labels.

Many companies in the food and biotechnology industry, including Creve Coeur-based Monsanto Co., want to keep it that way. But they’ll have to fend off a growing push for labels on genetically modified products that’s gaining traction in Washington and state capitals.

At least 18 states are now considering laws that would make the labels mandatory, including Illinois and California, the country’s biggest market. Earlier this year, pro-labeling advocates marched from New York to Washington. Late last fall, about 500 groups, including some of the country’s biggest consumer organizations, banded together as the Just Label It campaign. Also last fall, the Washington-based Center for Food Safety filed a petition with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, calling for the agency to require labels. As of this week, the petition had 850,000 signatures of support, the most ever for a federal food petition.

“Fifty countries have mandatory labeling. We’re one of the only developed countries that doesn’t. GMOs are labeled in China, Russia. Why would consumers in those countries have this information and we not have it here?” said Megan Westgate, executive director of the the Non-GMO Project, a group that verifies and labels products as free of genetically altered ingredients. “It feels like we’re at this tipping point where a lot more Americans are concerned about this.”