Austin-based genetically-engineered (“GE”) food activist and Whole Foods Market shareholder Jenny Clark approached the Socially Responsible Investment Coalition last fall for assistance in using her stock ownership to encourage that company to be more forthcoming in its food labeling practices. Together we proceeded to write a shareholder resolution.

Although none of our SRIC members was a Whole Foods shareholder, we found Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility members and others who were and who were interested in taking up this struggle. They included the General Board of Pension and Health Benefits of the United Methodist Church, Trillium Asset Management, and a handful of individual investors. Other ICCR members without stock but with specialized knowledge of the GE food issues pitched in with technical assistance.

The resolution, filed in October, essentially asked the company to label products sold under the Whole Foods private labels as to their GE and non-GE ingredients. (The entire resolution may be viewed by going to www.iccr.org and clicking on the current resolutions on the right near the top of the page.) As is often the case, the filing led to dialog between the shareholders and the company. In dialog the company insisted that private label products manufactured after October 1, 2001, did not contain GE ingredients but, for a variety of legal, technical, and production reasons it was unwilling to label them as such at this time. The shareholders, of course, maintained that such labeling would seemingly enhance the marketability of the products.

The shareholders eventually concluded that sufficient progress had been made in the meetings to justify withdrawal of the resolution. The company agreed to increase the visibility of its GE consumer education and lobbying information in its stores and on its Web site; to improve store-to-store consistency of its consumer education materials; to address the issue of re-labeling Bakehouse and Commissary products, which may contain GE ingredients; to establish timelines for the implementation of these measures; to continue to update shareholders on the progress of these measures; and, to continue the dialog with shareholders.

Moreover, the company agreed that the shareholders could report on this exchange at the annual shareholder meeting which was held in Fort Lauderdale on March 25. Shelley Alpern, a Trillium executive, made the presentation and was applauded by the other shareholders present.

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