Wal-Mart is the Worst, Report Says

Supermarket Rankings:  Wal-Mart and Hymall Rank Last [Commonwealth Times via China Philanthropy Times]

On March 13, the international environmental organization Greenpeace released its first Supermarket Rankings report.  Wal-Mart and Tesco’s Hymall suffered the lowest ratings for their food safety policies which are not made public… On the basis of freshness, pesticide residues, monitoring, and genetically modified foods policies, the Supermarket Rankings Report rated nine supermarkets with a red or green mark.

The policies on genetically modified foods and pesticide use for Wal-Mart, Hymall, Metro, Wu Mart, the Bailian Group, and Lotus were not satisfactory.  Therefore, these supermarkets earned a red rating.  The policies for Carrefour, Auchan, and PARKnSHOP earned green ratings.

Greenpeace agricultural director Pan Wenjing told reporters that the red rating supermarkets’ food safety policies were extremely imperfect.  This is an irresponsible practice that ignores consumers’ requirements for healthy foods.  In order to assure consumers, Greenpeace calls upon these supermarkets to value consumer rights and to as quickly as possible create the relevant systems.  The effect of genetically modified foods on consumers’ health has not been fully researched and evaluated.  The use of genetically modified materials in food is an extremely irresponsible business practice.

According to a Yi Pusuo Market Research Company survey of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou 65% of participants made it clear that genetically modified food was not acceptable.  80% of participants believe that pesticide use is the largest problem for food safety.

Click here to see Greenpeace’s Report in the original Chinese.

Posted by Michael Mignano on Tuesday, March 18, 2008

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