Consumers could soon unknowingly be purchasing gene-edited foods from their local supermarket, thanks to British Government legislation which quietly came into force at the end of last year. 

For some, this development will invoke memories of the “frankenfoods” GM row back in the 1990s.

A recent legal challenge to the relaxation of the rules on gene-edited foods in England has highlighted concerns over transparency and traceability in the food chain.

This article was supported by a grant from the investigative agency AGtivist, which had no editorial control over the reporting of the story.

Oversight

The government’s move has been slammed by campaigning organisations, and now, a judicial review that took place in May could see the legislation being reviewed or even quashed. The case has finished but a judgment is not expected for some time.  

New regulations under the Genetic Technology Act were passed last year allowing the commercial growing and sale of plants, which have been altered using a genetic modification technique called gene-editing. 

The act and accompanying regulations - which do not apply to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - reclassify gene-edited crops as “precision bred organisms” (PBOs), where it has been deemed that the genetic modification could have taken place through traditional breeding methods. 

The new categorisation of gene-edited crops means they are exempt from regulations that govern other types of GMOs. This means that gene-edited crops can make their way onto supermarket shelves with no safety or environmental assessments, without labelling and with no traceability in the supply chain. 

The lack of oversight and traceability is part of the judicial review going to the High Court in May, which has brought into question the legality of the government’s move. 

Supermarket

The legal claim was led by the environmental advocacy group, Beyond GM, who alongside their co-claimants argued that the government was acting unlawfully by breaching the public’s right to participate in decisions surrounding GMOs. 

According to the claimants legal firm, Leigh Day, the “failure to provide the public with adequate information or consultation prior to the release of PBOs into the market and environment” is a breach of UK obligations under both the Human rights Act and the Aarhus Convention.

Leigh Day also states that “the new regulations create a separate framework for the management of PBOs which does not enforce safety testing, tracing or labelling, and makes PBOs exempt from environmental damage regulations. 

What people don’t want is gene-editing technology developed simply to serve economic growth.

"In addition, how the regulations will function in practice is left to non-binding guidance which is not subject to Parliamentary scrutiny.”

According to Food Standards Agency (FSA) data, more than 80 per cent of consumers want PBOs labelled so that they can make informed choices in the supermarket. 

Safety

The FSA survey, conducted ahead of the new legislation being passed, found that participants “felt very strongly that precision bred products should be labelled as precision bred.” The survey also found that “many participants felt that the level of scrutiny, testing and regulation should be just as high as for GMOs.”

Sarah Hartley is professor of technology governance at the University of Exeter Business School and the director of the Centre for Responsible Innovation.

She has found in her public engagement exercises that the desire for labelling is not due to public fear of new technological developments, but rather what those technological developments serve. 

“People want technology to serve the public interest. They want technology to serve challenges facing society like food security or food sovereignty or the environment.

“I’m not sure people are worried about [these technologies] in the way government think they are. It is often said that the public’s concerns are around safety, but my understanding is that that is predominantly not the case.”

Disease

“I don’t think people reject GM crops because they think they are not safe. They object to them on various other grounds, such as equity and power.” 

She added: “What they don’t want is technology developed simply to serve economic growth. They are concerned about corporate power over food supply systems.” 

Hartley states that technological innovations like gene editing are more at home in the dominant industrial model of agriculture than they are in ecologically-based systems like regenerative or organic agriculture.

“When the public wants labelling, they want to be able to choose alternatives to [gene edited crops] that support other kinds of farming systems.”

One of the main benefits and arguments for the development of gene edited crops is that they can support food security and combat the climate crisis by developing higher yielding and drought and disease resistant crops. 

Discomfort

However, research has shown that many of the gene editing projects in progress are not developing these beneficial technologies. 

A New GMOs Market Report from June 2025 found that of a review of 49 gene editing projects globally, only six were being developed to combat challenges such as heat or drought tolerance or disease and pest resistance. 

Research has also highlighted the slow development of these technologies. A January 2026 report from Switzerland’s Federal Office for the Environment found that globally 89 gene edited crops are in development, with only 15 close to market release. 

Pat Thomas, director of the environmental charity Beyond GM and a former editor of The Ecologist, said: “UK consumers' discomfort with genetic modification in the farming and food system has been a constant for decades. 

Fiasco

"Giving these lab-created organisms a new name and removing the tools necessary to trace them through the food system won't change that — it may even create stronger pushback. 

"It's also important to remember that the new legislation has been rejected by Scotland and Wales, which do not view gene editing as a sustainable solution to food system challenges. It is also completely at odds with the legal requirements of the organic and biodynamic supply chain, where these PBOs remain GMOs and must legally be excluded. 

"But underneath all of this lies a more fundamental question: do consumers have the right to know what is in their food and how it was produced? The government’s answer to that question, apparently, is no." 

Professor Nigel Halford, a crop scientist at Rothamsted Research, believes labelling would be a positive action for the sale of gene edited foods. “In the GM fiasco at the end of the 1990s, lack of labelling at that time was one of the big problems with consumers.”

Wink

Halford suggested that manufacturers could voluntarily label their PBO products. “Just because you don’t have to label, doesn’t mean you can’t. [Manufacturers can] be transparent and use labelling in a positive way.” 

He suggested that consumers may be more inclined to buy gene edited foods if packaging promoted potential benefits of the crops such as, “better flavour, safer foods or lower chemical inputs,” if these qualities could be proven.

According to Halford, labelling likely hasn’t been mandated due to the policy and enforcement implications of such regulation. “It would be hard to police it as these crops carry mutations that could have occurred naturally. For imports, it will be almost impossible to enforce something like labelling as most countries aren’t regulating gene editing at all.”

Thomas notes, however, that the legislation requires no proof or precedent that these new GMOs could have occurred naturally. “Approval is a self certification process - essentially the premise is accepted on a wink and a nod.” 

Consumers

She also contends that the responsibility for labelling should be mandatory and should rest with the developer rather than the consumer. 

Currently gene edited foods are classified as GMO in the EU, though this may be changing. In the US, one of the UK’s largest trading partners, gene edited crops have also been deregulated, meaning there is no labelling or traceability in the supply chain. 

Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also greenlit the farming of gene edited pigs for sale as pork. In England, the new Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Regulations, though implemented for crops at the moment, has been viewed by some campaigning groups as a stepping stone to gene edited meat for sale in supermarkets. 

Decades of public debate about genetic modification in the food system have consistently returned to one question: who decides, and on what basis? The recent judicial review may not resolve that debate whatever the outcome. But it may determine whether the government was entitled to answer it on the consumers' behalf.

This Author

Verity Portas is a freelance food systems researcher and writer.

This article was supported by a grant from the investigative agency AGtivist, which had no editorial control over the reporting of the story.