NOTE: Many thanks to all of you who wrote to Sainsbury's Chairman Justin King about the company's brand director, Judith Batchelar, being quoted in Farmers Weekly expressing the company's sadness that the UK had "missed out" on "lots of progress" in GM farming and research.
http://bit.ly/xyhSLb

This is the full quote: "The sad thing is lots of progress is being used in other parts of the world and they are using technology the UK hasn't been part of....We feel sad that we have missed out on that research."

Those who wrote received replies from Justin King that were generally reassuring about the company's policy on GM and which claimed that Sainsbury's brand director's comments had been "inaccurately attributed" and that reports of her comments were misleading. Below GM Freeze comments on the correspondence we've had with Sainsbury's about this.

If you'd like to write to Mr King, he can be reached at <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.> or by letter to: 
The Chairman
Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd
33 Holborn
London
EC1N 2HT

You might like to point out that excluding GM ingredients (and Sainsbury's needs to do a lot more on this in the case of GM animal feed going into their dairy and meat products) is not the only issue. It also matters if Sainsbury's are supporting GM farming in the UK and elsewhere, and giving encouragement to those who wish to introduce it more widely, because as Mark Price, CEO of Waitrose has pointed out "the major problem with the technology is that it is a 'one in, all in' deal", and that simply isn't fair on farmers and consumers who want to stay GM-free.
http://bangmfood.org/quotes/24-quotes/31-gm-and-non-gm-crops-cannot-coexist  
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Sainsbury's and Farmers Weekly
GM Freeze, 17 Jan 2012
http://www.gmfreeze.org/actions/22/

Sainsbury's has been in correspondence with GM Watch about its website coverage of this issue [http://bit.ly/xyhSLb ], which expands on the company's statements to activists that comments were "misinterpreted" and "inaccurately attributed" by Farmers Weekly.

On "inaccurately attributed": So far this is not substantiated on Brand Director Judith Batchelar's "sadness" about the UK "missing out" on GM. In an email to GM Watch Sainsbury's said, "Judith's comments were prompted by a question at our an event we held at the Oxford Farming Conference." To our knowledge there has been no retraction or correction offered by Farmers Weekly. This seems to indicate that the comments were indeed made by Ms Batchelar. (We should point out that comments in the article about consumers being "confused" about GM were apparently not made by Ms Batchelar, but that is not the heart of the matter.)

On "misinterpreted": This is also difficult to see. In a letter for publication in Farmers Weekly the company is at pains to point out that the reporting of Ms Batchelar's comments is "highly misleading when not shown in the proper context". However the "context" the company offers is that its does not "permit the use of GM...in our own label products...As a responsible retailer, we will always be interested in new research and developments, as our customers expect us to be well informed and up-to-date with all areas of research and development in the food and agriculture sectors. This is not the same thing as saying that we are actively looking to review our policy, which we are definitely not."

This "full picture" of the company's position on GM crops does not answer the question: Is Sainsbury's "sad" the UK has "missed out" on "lots of progress" in GM farming and research? No retraction or correction has been offered by Farmers Weekly to our knowledge, and a clear answer to that question would be most welcome.