Farmers' Letter to Fred Meyer

You’ve probably seen grocery store advertising where marketing labels claim products like peanut butter are gluten-free or non-gmo when neither are possible to begin with. A group of Western Oregon farmers wrote a letter to retailer Fred Meyer addressing some mis-leading marketing that promotes “non-gmo” vegetable starts. Farmer and agdvocate Brenda Frketich says that the letter’s purpose was to open dialogue
Frketich: “We go together with a group of farmers and wrote a letter to Fred Meyer and their marketing department just to let them know that these are the ten crops that are actually GMO — and none of them are garden starts they aren’t even available on the market. So if you wouldn’t mind being a part of this conversation and try and spread good, positive messaging and when to and when you don’t need to label GMOs.”
Frketich stresses that the objective of the letter was to engage the retailer in conversation about labeling. She continues
Frketich: “We didn’t want to be confrontational or anything like that.We love our local grocerers. As farmers we see it as an opportunity to reach out to a whole new group of people and have that conversation start at the grocery store because what a good place than where you get your food to have that conversation in a way that is truthful and transparency.”