Australian consumers don't mind GM: survey

A new survey suggests the great 'Frankenfood' scare could be over in Australia before it has even begun.

The survey, by commonwealth agency Biotechnology Australia, showed there had been a seismic shift in consumer sentiment over the past six months -- the number of Australians who would be willing to buy GM foods has risen to 50 per cent, up from only 25 per cent three years ago.

Craig Cormick, Public Awareness Manager for Biotechnology Australia, told a member briefing of the Australian Food and Grocery Council in Melbourne that public pronouncements of anti-GM activists were no longer being reported uncritically, and featured less prominently in Australian newspapers and the electronic media. Cormick said there had been a significant shift to a more sceptical, analytical and balanced coverage of GM issues.

He also said that Biotechnology Australia's surveys showed that consumers were becoming desensitised to anti-GM scare tactics, despite stepped-up campaigning by organisations like Greenpeace and the GeneEthics Network.

Consumer profiling showed that the attitudes of a small group of anti-GM 'early deciders' were unlikely to change, Cormick said. But they constituted only a small minority of the consumer market.

By far the largest group constituted consumers who had been discomforted by anti-GM claims of health and environmental risks, but had remained open-minded.

In this group, according to Cormick, there had been an almost seismic shift in attitude - many were no longer concerned, or even sceptical, about the supposed hazards of GM foods.

This trend, also evident in the UK and North America, was underscored by surveys that asked consumers to rank their concerns about various food safety risks. Broadly, consumers were much more concerned about pesticide contamination, food poisoning and human tampering with foods, than with any perceived risk posed by GM foods.

In fact, Cormick said, one of the major problems with all surveys of consumer attitudes on GM foods was that they inevitably drew attention to an issue that was off consumers' radar: many consumers had no interest in, or concerns about, GM foods, until they were asked to express an opinion.

Cormick said the quality of the debate in Australia seemed to be improving and the media were doing a better job of reporting on GM agriculture and food issues than at any time in the past decade. He said he believed it was significant that journalists were asking more about the health and environmental benefits of the technology than the alleged risks.

No impact on sales

A corporate affairs spokesperson for one of Australia's largest food producers, who wished to remain anonymous, told Australian Biotechnology News at the briefing that Greenpeace's True Food Guide had convinced only the already-converted to avoid foods containing GM ingredients, and had had no impact on product sales.

The True Food Guide urges consumers to contact the consumer service centres of big companies to demand GM-free food, and provides full contact details, but the food company spokesperson said calls had risen only marginally.

This was also the experience of corporate affairs managers at other large food manufacturers: "The scare tactics [of the anti-GM movement] worked for a while, then people became desensitised," the spokesperson said.