NEW YORK (AP) — Chipotle says it has completed phasing out genetically modified ingredients from its food, making it the first national fast-food chain to do so.
The Denver-based chain had already been using mostly non-GMO ingredients, but was working on making final changes to its tortillas.
The Food and Drug Administration maintains that GMOs are safe, and most of the country’s corn and soybean crops are genetically modified to have certain traits like resistance to herbicides and plant diseases.
In recent years, however, activists have been calling for regulations that require labeling for foods that contain genetically modified ingredients. Many companies have responded to such concerns; Whole Foods has said all products in its stores that contain genetically modified ingredient will be labeled as such by 2018.
Chipotle Co-CEO Steve Ells has said in the past that the company felt it was best not to use GMOs given the “lack of consensus” about their effects.
On its website Monday, Chipotle said it was “G-M-Over It.”
Chipotle Mexican Grill, which has around 1,800 locations, has enjoyed strong sales growth in recent years in part by defining itself as a more wholesome alternative to traditional fast-food chains. On a page explaining the completion of its transition away from genetically modified ingredients, for instance, the company cited “fast food” under an image of a burger as an example of where people might encounter GMOs.
In January, Chipotle also said it would stop serving pork in about a third of its restaurants after finding one of its suppliers violated its animal welfare standards. The company said it doesn’t expect the pork shortage to be fully resolved until late this year.
Chipotle still serves Coca-Cola fountain drinks, which are made with high-fructose corn syrup. But this past summer, the company started testing a root beer that is organically sweetened in Denver. That test is ongoing, said Chris Arnold, a company spokesman.
Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung said in October 2013 that the company was starting to see higher oil costs as it converted from GMO soybean oil to non-GMO sunflower and rice bran oil. Hartung said at the time the higher costs might be reflected in an eventual price increase, but that it would be a “pretty exciting time” when the company announced its transition was complete.
The completion of the phase-out was first reported by The New York Times.
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AP Writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed from Washington, D.C.
Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
When do we expect them to jack up the prices? The so-called “organic” foods are smaller and more expensive to produce safely.
If we did away with GMO food, we’d be in a lot of hurtin’. The anti-GMO crowd and the anti-vaccine crowd share the same lack for foresight and paranoia brought on by science illiteracy.
Virtually everything we eat has been genetically modified, and long before science figured out how to do it directly, by manipulating the genes themselves. Go back 10,000 years, and try to find anything to eat that even remotely resembles what you eat today. Apples, for example, would have been hard, fairly bitter fruit, probably no bigger than a walnut. Wheat? No such thing - just some wild grain with a few skimpy kernels. Think you’d find anything that looks like a dairy cow? Good luck. You get the idea. The exceptions are pretty limited - things like wild-caught seafood, for example, is probably genetically unchanged from prehistory (but now featuring mercury, alas).
The only thing that’s changed is the method by which we alter nature. If anything, direct genetic manipulation is a lot safer than the former “let’s cross these and see what happens” approach. Cross-breeding typically alters thousands upon thousands of genes - it’s a crapshoot. Modern genetic engineering targets a handful of genes, with a pretty solid idea of what the outcome is going to be.
Next, they’ll be touting their gluten-free water.
Score another point for Big Superstition. Yay?