There was a food scare spectre at the feast in Rayners Lane this Thursday when Sainsburys’ opened their new store. Protesters, including a pantomime cow, handed out warning leaflets to shoppers. The group is part of a coalition from farmers unions to the Women’s Institute who are concerned by the fact that milk from Sainsbury’s stores come from cows fed genetically modified animal feed.

Despite early threats from senior management that the police would be called to stop the mellow demo, it was finally conceded that silently protesting on the high street was probably not illegal in this case. Sainsbury’s eventually responded by putting their own promotional leaflets (and leafleteers) outside, with their own placard. This retaliation caused some bafflement among the public, who were none the less overwhelmingly supportive of the cow and its warning message. Matters eventually came to a close some two and a half hours later, with both sides going inside to warm up.

On the press release Daisy explained “Six years ago Sainsbury’s promised to stop feeding their dairy herds GM crops, but thousands of tonnes of GM are still being imported every year to supply their cattle. There have been no safety tests to find out what effect eating GM may have on cows, or on the people who then drink their milk. No one will insure against the risks associated with GM feed because of this lack of data, and a growing number of scientists have expressed serious concerns about the practise, especially given the increased threat of GM pharmacrops contaminating US imports . Given the additional social and environmental problems caused by the growing of GM, we think it’s vital Sainsbury’s stops letting GM into the foodchain by the back door.”

There'll be photos to follow if I can get this ridiculous dial up to behave. X