The largest supermarket chain in the Czech Republic, Delvita, has announced that it will stop selling any food products containing Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
Following a Greenpeace demonstration in front of a Delvita supermarket in the centre of Prague, the chain – part of the group Delhaize Le Lion – announced that it would begin the move towards all the food it sold being GMO free.
Greenpeace welcomed Delvita’s statement, a further signal that companies outside the European Union are also responding to increasing public pressure to reject genetically engineered (GE) food products.
Ninety-nine percent of Czech consumers who responded to a recent Czech newspaper poll on GMOs declared they did not want GE food to be sold in their country. In an earlier poll last March 63 percent of respondents said they would not eat GE food even if it was cheaper than conventional food.
So far, four supermarket chains (BIlla, Delvita, Norma, SPAR) declared they would go GE-free and two others (Penny Market, Globus) declared they would be going GE-free with their own brands.
Greenpeace Czech Republic will produce and distribute on November 29 a list of products sold in the country exposing those which contain GMOs.
