Dive Brief:
- Manufacturers won't have to face consumer lawsuits regarding compliance with Vermont's GMO labeling law until next summer, per a rider Vermont legislators attached to the omnibus budget bill in the final days of its session. Vermont's GMO labeling law goes into effect July 1.
- The rider delays consumers' "right to action" against manufacturers that do not comply with the law until July 1, 2017.
- Vermont retailers were concerned about facing legal action themselves due to still selling products without GMO labels that were distributed before the law went into effect. The state will allow a six-month compliance window.
Dive Insight:
Only a handful of major manufacturers have announced plans to label GMO ingredients across portfolios. That means the rest have had to decide whether to label only products sold in Vermont, which could be a costly operation; not be compliant by the law's effective date; or pull products from Vermont altogether.
Manufacturers and organizations like the Grocery Manufacutrers Association have expressed frustration with the law and desire for a national standard.
Manufacturers will still be subjected to fines for not labeling products with GMO ingredients by the law's effective date this summer. But they can relax knowing that if compliance is taking more time, additional litigation expenditures on this basis won't be necessary just yet.
But manufacturers who won't be compliant by July 1 aren't in the clear. Last month, Vermont regulators announced that they will target "willful" violators of the GMO labeling law, while taking into account shelf life and date of distribution (before or after the law went into effect).
In related news, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) confirmed movement on the GMO labeling debate in the Senate with Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KA) giving "great consideration" to a proposal from fellow committee member Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Harvest Public Media reported. Grassley did not give Harvest Public Media proposal details.