Little GM food makes it onto European plates, says EU

Little genetically modified food ends up on consumers' plates in Europe, the European Commission said Wednesday in a review of the regulation of GM products in the European Union.

"There are currently few GM foods products on the EU market and this is linked to factors such as consumer demand and availability rather than the new EU legislation," the commission said.

Since new authorisation rules were introduced in 2004, about 10 GM strains have been cleared for the EU market, mainly for maize destined for human or animal consumption.

The 25-nation EU had seen three "major incidences" of unauthorised GM products -- all originating from the United States -- reaching the EU market since the new rules went into force, the EU's executive arm said.

Those episodes concerned the discovery in recent months of shipments of long-grain GM rice, maize gluten last year, and Hawaiian papaya in 2004 and 2005.

The commission said that when authorised GM food was put on the market, strict new labelling rules were being respected.

Although genetically engineered food is uncommon in the EU, GM animal feed is much more frequently found because of the prevalence of biotech soy beans in global production.