Recently published data from ENGA member and German Non-GMO labelling platform, VLOG, shows continued growth in sales in "Ohne Gentechnik" (Non-GMO) products in Germany in 2021. Consumers spent around 13.2 billion euros on "Ohne Gentechnik" labelled products last year, an increase of 4.3 percent on the previous year.
The sales figures reveal the particularly strong success of Non-GMO dairy, poultry and eggs (€9.2 billion, €2.2 billion and €1.1 billion of sales respectively) and highlight the potential growth in other areas, such as beef and pork. "The figures show that 'Ohne Gentechnik' products continue to be highly popular with consumers," explains Alexander Hissting, Managing Director of VLOG.
The strong consumer demand for Non-GMO products and, implicitly, that the products are labelled as such, calls into question the European Commission’s plans for a deregulation of New GMOs. The high sales in Germany surely indicate that such a move – to abolish the need for GMO labelling (that is the basis for Non-GMO labelling) – would not be popular with consumers.
In its press release VLOG highlights that other challenges persist in the market, such as high animal feed prices and the uncertainty around supply of feed due to the war in Ukraine, which opponents of Non-GMO have used as a pretext to undermine the need for Non-GMO labelling and have falsely claimed that there has been a lack of supply of Non-GM feed. It’s difficult to predict, going forward, what the impact of these factors may be on this year’s sales.