Posted June 18, 2014
Consumer Reports National Research Center released a poll revealing that 59 percent of consumers check to see if they are buying “natural” products even though there is “no federal or third-party verified label for the term,” said the organization, according to a Farm Futures article available here. USA Today also published an article available here, Food Business News here, and Consumer Reports here. A recent blog post on products labeled as “natural” is available here.
The poll was conducted by phone, and administered by Opinion Research Corporation of Princeton, N.J. The survey sample included 1,004 adults selected by random-digital dialing, and half of the respondents were women. The calls were conducted between April 17 to 21, and the group says, “data were statistically weighted so that respondents in the survey were demographically and geographically representative of the U.S. population.”
About two-thirds of people look for the term when they shop, because they believe it means a processed food has no artificial ingredients, pesticides, or genetically modified organisms. More than 80 percent believe it should mean those things, according to Consumer Reports.
Consumer Reports is launching a new campaign to ban the term “natural” to assist customers in making informed decisions at the grocery store. The campaign, which has a social media platform partnership with TakePart, will petition the government to prevent manufacturers from using the term.
Under federal labeling rules, there is no definition for the term “natural,” according to USA Today.
“Our findings show consumers expect much more from ‘natural’ food labels and that there is a strong consumer mandate for better food production practices in general and food label standards that meet a higher bar,” said Urvashi Rangan, executive director of the Consumer Reports Food Safety and Sustainability Center in Yonkers, N.Y.
Additional survey data showed that 92 percent felt genetically modified organisms should be labeled; 92 percent want country-of-origin labels; and 83 percent felt meat produced with antibiotics should be labeled, according to Food Business News.
The Consumer Reports petition to ban “natural” is available here.
For more information on food labeling, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
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