Maybe you’ve been following the long-simmering controversy about labeling food products for GMOs (genetically modified organisms). If you haven’t, now is a good time to pay attention because one of the world’s largest food conglomerates—that would be Campbell’s—has just thrown a new twist into the GMO pot. In fact, Campbell’s recently announced turnaround might just prove to be the watershed moment the anti-GMO movement and vocal consumers have been hoping for.

Campbell’s, a long-time opponent of GMO labeling, is breaking ranks with its biotech and agribusiness cronies and the powerful Grocery Manufacturing Association (GMA) to become the first major food company to label its entire line of products for genetically engineered ingredients. (That portfolio includes Campbell’s iconic soups, Pepperidge Farm cookies and snacks, Vlasic pickles, V-8 beverages, Prego pasta sauces, Swanson broths, and more).

Campbell’s new policy is in answer to consumers’ demands for transparency and reflects the economic realities of the impending enforcement of the first state-labeling law to take effect this summer in Vermont. To put it bluntly, it looks like Campbell’s is conceding defeat in the fight to establish mandatory labeling of GMOs.

Here’s how Campbell’s CEO Denise Morrison’s dropped the bombshell on January 17th:

Today, consistent with our purpose, we announced our support for mandatory national labeling of products that may contain genetically modified organisms (GMO) and proposed that the federal government provide a national standard for non-GMO claims made on food packaging.

Campbell’s announcement must have sent shockwaves through the industrial food complex because up to this year the company had been marching in lock step with the powerful anti–GMO-labeling lobby. That group was composed of a who’s who of America’s food giants—corporate titans like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Nestle, General Mills, Hershey, Kellogg, Land O’Lakes, Del Monte, Cargill, ConAgra, Ocean Spray, and Smuckers.

Along with Campbell’s announcement backing a federal mandate for labeling came a second bombshell: that the company would “withdraw from all efforts led by coalitions and groups opposing such measures.” It was as recent as 2012 that Campbell’s deposited $265,000 into the anti-labeling lobby’s war chest. That pile of cash eventually tallied up to the mighty sum of $46 million, which America’s corporate giants sank into the campaign to defeat Proposition 37 in California (the first salvo in the fight to defeat state-mandated labeling of foods for GMO ingredients). And although Campbell’s contribution was a drop in the bowl compared to Monsanto’s more than $4 million and DuPont’s more than $3 million, the new year’s turnaround by Campbell’s could be a game changer.

Remember that the corporate bullies won the first battle in 2012, when California voters narrowly defeated Prop 37. Where California failed, however, Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine succeeded. In May 2014, Vermont’s Governor Peter Shumlin signed into law Act 120, one of the country’s first mandatory, GMO-labeling laws. Act 120, which becomes enforceable as of July 2016, requires that all foods offered for sale in Vermont must be labeled for GMOs if the food is “entirely or partially produced with genetic engineering.”

It looks like tiny Vermont sounded the alarm on the future of GMO-labeling and one corporate food giant finally is listening.

Addressing the question of why the sudden turnaround: Here’s Campbell’s Morrison again:

We are operating with a “consumer first” mindset. We put the consumer at the center of everything we do. . . . GMO has evolved to be a top consumer food issue reaching a critical mass of 92% of consumers in favor of putting it on the label.

And Campbell’s has broken ranks even on the issue of the cost of labeling. Addressing the canard that labeling for GMOs would increase costs for consumers, in an email response to the Organic Consumers Association, Campbell’s spokesperson Tom Hushen wrote:

To be clear, there will be no price increase as a result of Vermont or national GMO labeling for Campbell products.

Campbell’s words and actions certainly appear to support the obvious economic benefits of a single federal labeling law rather than the higher projected costs of complying with a patchwork of state labeling laws. Campbell’s will be looking for guidance from the USDA and FDA for a single, federally legislated mandatory labeling standard. In sum, Campbell’s—unlike the rest of the food giants—has seen where the wind is blowing on GMO transparency and has decided to take the lead.

However, lest GMO opponents get too excited, it’s important to point out that Campbell’s is not conceding anything on the health dangers of GMOs. Here is spokesperson Tom Hushen of Campbell’s reaffirming his company’s unwavering commitment to GMOs:

We still believe GMOs are safe, and we continue to believe that they play an important role in feeding the world.

Clearly, for GMO opponents hoping to eliminate genetically modified ingredients entirely from America’s food basket, the labeling battle may have been won but the war will still go on.

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Have you heard the one about a fetching New England state and the big, bad wolf?

Let me fill you in a bit. Last month, that fetching state, more often referred to as Vermont, passed the first comprehensive, mandatory GMO (genetically modified organisms, for those of you unfamiliar with the acronym) labeling law in the United States.

As expected, as quick as you can say Monsanto and the packaged food industry, one short month later, Vermont is being stalked straight into court by the Grocery Manufacturing Association, as well as by three other heavily financed packaged-food groups.

It certainly didn’t take long for the members of the pack, including St. Louis’s very own homegrown big bad wolf—that’s Monsanto for you non-Missourians—to start baying at the moon. The lawyerly wolves among the group quickly sat down on their haunches and developed a two-pronged attack. The first side of the attack claims that Vermont’s law violates the free-speech rights of corporations. (Who can forget how that cuddly wolf Mitt Romney famously intoned that “corporations are people too”?) The second side of the attack claims that the labeling law is inconsistent with FDA findings that there’s no evidence that GMOs are harmful to humans.

Poor, gentle Vermont. Its voters certainly scared the fur off of the big bad wolves. It’s easy to imagine the giant food corporations pacing and howling in their wounded state. After all, today gentle Vermont. Tomorrow brawny Oregon and Maine and after that tony Connecticut. There’s no question that a majority of consumers clearly back labeling for GMOs—reflecting a slew of unanswered questions about the lack of controlled, independent studies concerning the health effects of GMOs.

What kind of teeth, you may ask, does Vermont’s labeling law display? Not many, unfortunately. The fines for failure to label are a paltry $1,000. But the sharpness or the quantity of teeth is beside the point. As the herds of GMO-labeling advocates know, once the genie is out of the bottle, there may be no stopping it.

To be clear: The range of foods covered by the law is narrow. And the law, if left to stand in the courts, will have to wait until 2016 to kick in. According to Vermont’s attorney general, “the labeling requirement wouldn’t apply to many food categories, including meat, milk, restaurant fare and raw agricultural commodities that aren’t grown with genetically modified seed.”

It’s going to be interesting to watch the wolves gnash and gnaw as the fight heats up. After all, there’s a pile of money and an entire industry at stake in this fight. Remember that almost the entire crop of U.S. soybeans and corn grown in 2013 came from GMOs. Are you surprised by that chapter in this story?

Still you never know, do you, how fairy tales are resolved. The heroes sometimes lose, and the villains, the smelly wolves, sometimes win. Even so, I say it’s time to thank courageous Vermonters for standing up to that big bad wolf. We’ll just have to wait and see how this one ends.

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