By Joanne Black

27^th August 2001 - The NZ Dairy Board was forced to withdraw several cartons of processed cheese, believed to be destined for McDonald's in Sri Lanka, after Sri lanka ordered an unprecedented crackdown on genetically modified foods.

The Sir Lankan action, understood by the NZ government to be the harshest in the world against genetically modified organisms, was made via a regulation on May 1 but it has since been suspended until September 1.

After the regulation was promulgated various trading partners, including NZ which has a significant dairy trade with Sri Lanka, made representations to the Colombo government.

A spokewoman for Trade Minister Jim Sutton said that apart from difficulties with the drafting of the regulation, Sri Lanka had also failed to give the required 60 days notice of changes under the World Trade Organisation rules.

The new regulation not only banned the importation, manufacture, sale or distribution of all genetically modified foods, but also required verification that imported products, including soy, corn, tomato and cheese, contained no ingredients or materials subject to genetic modification.

Dairy Board spokeman Neville Martin said the cartons of processed cheese caught by the ban used lecithin as an emulsifier.

Lecithin has a soy content and often soy is a genetically modified crop.

Mr. Martin said the cartons of cheese, which he believed were destined for McDonalds, were replaced by a product that met the Sri Lankan requirements.

A range of emulsifiers were available that did not have GE ingredients.

Mr. Martin said cheese using the same emulsifier was sold in NZ, like hundreds of other products that contained GE-modified soy.

He said although there were nonGE options to the emulsifier, it would continue to be used in some cheeses until consumers shoed they no longer wanted it.

The NZ government understands the new regulation probably will stay in force from Sept l but, in practice, Sri Lanka will accept imports accompanied by a certificate saying there was no GE content detectable in the final product.

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