After
270,000 people sign petition, food company appears to soften its stance on
using dyes linked to hyperactivity in children
guardian.co.uk,
Paul Harris in New York, Tuesday 2 April 2013
A petition containing 270,000 signatures has been delivered to the headquarters of food giant Kraft, demanding the firm remove two chemical food colourings from its mac'n'cheese product.
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| Vani Hari and Lisa Leake handed over a petition with some 270,000 signatures asking Kraft to change its recipe. Photograph: Vani Hari |
A petition containing 270,000 signatures has been delivered to the headquarters of food giant Kraft, demanding the firm remove two chemical food colourings from its mac'n'cheese product.
The protest
was started by two food bloggers, Vani Hari and Lisa Leake, and the pair met
representatives from the firm for an hour to discuss their request that the
firm take out the controversial additives known as Yellow #5 and Yellow #6.
During the
meeting the firm appeared to soften a stance on changing its recipe.
"Kraft told us they 'can't predict the future' of dyes in Macaroni &
Cheese," said Hari in a statement after handing over a petition with some
270,000 signatures.
Hari and
Leake, who respectively run the blogs Food Babe and 100 Days of Real Food,
began their petition to highlight that the firm's original recipe Kraft
Macaroni and Cheese, a staple of many American households, contains two
chemicals that are not used in many recipes abroad where regulatory authorities
have raised health concerns. Even in the US the Center for Science in the
Public Interest has linked them to hyperactivity in children, migraines and
asthma.
The bloggers
are asking Kraft to change its recipe so that its US product is the same as
that sold in countries such as the United Kingdom, where the food dyes are not
used, or even Kraft's 14 other mac'n'cheese products in the US which also do
not contain them. "If Kraft really wants to do right by their customers,
like they've said, they'll make their American products just as safe as their
European ones." Hari said.
However,
Kraft officials said later that there were no current plans to change the
recipe. "I said that while I can't speculate on the future, as we consider
new products, we'll keep listening to our consumers," said Kraft
spokeswoman Lynne Galia, who attended the meeting.
Kraft says
that it fully complies with all the necessary regulatory requirements in the US
and has pointed out that the Food and Drug Administration has approved the
additives as being safe for human consumption.
Hari and
Leake's pettion was set up on the website Change.org and is one of a rash of
recent protests aimed at getting major companies to change the ingredients in
popular brands. Last year a Mississippi high school student used the same
website to get 200,000 signatures on a petition to lobby Gatorade to stop using
a specific chemical added to its energy drinks that had been linked to possible
neurological disorders. The company later said it would phase the substance
out, though insisted its decision was unrelated to the protest.
Other
incidents have shown how the growth of viral social media can be a potential
peril for major parts of the food industry. Last year ABC news ran stories on a
beef product that was dubbed "pink slime" and saw its coverage go
viral on the internet. The result was a massive collapse in sales by the firm
that made the substance and a rash of lawsuits.
Leake said
that the Kraft protest was just part of a wider movement aimed at educating
ordinary consumers about the products that they bought. "When we started
our petition we knew we wouldn't be able to change Kraft's position overnight.
This campaign is one piece of a large-scale food revolution," she said.
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