Is your beer safe?
30th October 2007 by Alex Briggs
Anheuser Busch has denied serious allegations by Greenpeace that their Budweiser beer contains traces of a genetically engineered strain of rice known as “Liberty Link”.
Liberty Link is a series of strains of GM rice from Bayer CropScience. Some of the strains are banned in a number of markets around the world for human consumption, but not in the US.
Due to Anheuser Busch’s position as the largest single purchaser of American rice, Greenpeace claims that the group had a responsibility to ensure it was fully aware of how it is sourcing ingredients.
The attack on Anheuser-Busch highlights the fact that it is no longer acceptable to plea ignorance on any part of a company’s supply chain. Greeenpeace acknowledged that the beer manufacturer did not cause the contamination:
“Although Anheuser-Busch did not cause the genetic contamination of the rice, the company has a responsibility to their customers. It should have refused to purchase or use any rice contaminated by the [GM] strains.”
Companies today cannot afford the potential damage of not knowing every detail of their supply chain and suppliers.
