There are around 30 million loyalty card-carrying customers in the UK. Customers are told that information gathered with the cards will not be passed on to third parties.

Pete Riley, Food Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:

"If the Government is so concerned over the health impacts of genetically modified foods they shouldn’t be introducing them. Supermarket customers will be outraged to discover that they are to be part of a massive public health experiment on GM foods. Despite the fact that their customers have made it clear that they don’t want supermarkets to sell GM foods, it is clear that they are not only being ignored; but their loyalty is being abused as well.

Supermarkets must decide whose interests they are protecting: their customers or the big biotech firms?"

Despite public concern over GM foods the Government has been planning a pro-GM propaganda campaign with leading supermarkets. Last week Friends of the Earth revealed that the Government had discussed the possibility of running a pro-GM food video campaign at supermarket checkouts.

Friends of the Earth has also attacked the Government for allowing Science Minister Lord Sainsbury to be involved with decisions over GM food. Lord Sainsbury has various links with the GM food industry.

In October a NOP survey for Friends of the Earth revealed that 58 per cent of supermarket customers did not want their supermarkets to sell GM food.

Something happened on Tuesday 2 Feb that kicked one issue to the top of the consumer food agenda . In an unprecedented action more than 130 of Britain’s leading food writers and chefs shared a platform with Greenpeace to call for a ban on gene foods. Food writers don’t agree easily on anything; we’ll split arcane hairs over how much humidity should be left in sun-dried tomatoes or the optimum cocoa solid ratio for dark chocolate.

That’s why our consensus that gene foods are a recipe for disaster is so significant.

Our action started with the realisation that gene foods are the single most important food issue of our lifetimes. Gene foods have been creeping into my awareness since 1993, when some top German chefs announced their opposition because of the risks they pose to human health and the environment. Since then I have watched the relentless progress of this genetic experiment, through the regulatory process with a growing sense of frustration.

Governments and bureaucrats are rolling over for the biotech industry although every indicator of public opinion in Europe and the UK shows that the more consumers know about gene foods the less they want them.

Now foods with genetically modified are on our shelves and it has become apparent that we were always going to get them, against our wishes and against our consent. It makes nonsense of any notion of democratic public control of our precious food chain.

I suspected that many other food writers would share that reaction and suggested to Greenpeace that we might approach them for support in calling for a ban. I thought that if 20 or more agreed we could make a minor fuss. But the response snowballed . In a fortnight or so, with relatively little effort, we had the great and the good of the food writing establishment at our back. Nigel Slater, Nigella Lawson, Fay Maschler, Derek Cooper, Egon Ronay, Valentia Harris, Anna del Conte, Darina Allen, Antony Worral Thompson. People who inform what the public eats and cooks through books broadcasts and columns. People who between them hold a massive amount of expertise on food matter. We discovered that both the Eurotoques - The European association of top chefs and the UK Guild of Food writers felt that the same and had already drawn up policy to this effect.

Even as we launched our campaign at the Savoy over an organic breakfast pre-pared by Anton Edelman, the biotech giant Monsanto was already on the phone to the newsdesks trying to neutralise our stance, saying that it was dismayed by the foodwriter’s endorsement of Greenpeace’s views on genetic engineering. It said we of all people should have "faith in the regulatory process which ensures that all food that comes into the market goes through a rigorous safety approval process".

Post BSE, it has become patently obvious that we cannot trust government to put public health and the environment concerns first. The BSE enquiry is turning into one long depressing tale of guardians of the public health telling us that there is no risk and subsequently being shown to be entirely wrong. The recent House of Lord’s report on gene foods was BSE all over again.

Despite Monsanto’s attempts to portray us as a irrational and uninformed, our opposition is profoundly sensible and easy to justify. Unlike dangerous baby car seats, there is no product recall. Once gene altered foods are released into the environment, there is no way of getting them back or predicting their effect, If genetic manipulation of our foodstuffs goes wrong it could make the fall out from BSE disaster look like child’s play.

Gene foods have already gone horribly wrong. Take the genetically engineered super salmon . It grows bigger, faster, and is also deformed. Then there’s milk produced by cows injected with the growth hormone rBST. The cows do produce more milk than but it contains more IGF1, an insulin like growth factor which, at elevated levels can increase the likelihood of cancer in humans. It has been demonstrated that herbicide tolerance can be transferred accidentally from genetically engineered crops to conventional crops and, more worryingly, to weeds in neighbouring fields.

Among food writers, there is not only the conviction that gene foods are dangerous, but that they are unnecessary. As author Lynda Brown puts it:

"They represent a double whammy . Not only do we get foods that we don’t but there is less chance of getting the food we want." Go down the path to of genetic manipulation of the food chain and you prejudice the very existence of the organic food the public is demanding. Organic farmers simply cannot police every or bird to stop pollution from genetically-engineered crops.

As people who care passionately about the quality and integrity of what we eat, the heart of the matter for food writers is that gene foods are taking us in the wrong direction. We want safe, wholesome, naturally produced food. We like products that are geographically specific. We want to encourage small scale food and true crop diversity. We want to see animals reared humanely and the environment cared for. Every step further down the gene food path makes that prospect less likely.

But how can we stop the gene food juggernaut? It’s becoming apparent that the food industry is extremely twitchy about genefoods and doesn’t know which way to jump. Some leading brands such as Kellogg’s and Heinz have already said they won’t use genetically engineered ingredients. Iceland has banned them in their own brand’ products and Asda and Spar look set to do the same. On the other hand, Lord Sainsbury is actively considering showing propaganda films in supermarkets in an attempt to sell the ‘benefits ‘of gene technology to the doubting public. As food writers we intend to focus this debate by sending out a powerful message to food producers, the food industry and retailers: "If you want us to trust your brand, to give you our business, don’t stock gene foods." We are giving them a chance to earn back our trust and confidence. The cooks amongst us will be promoting the use of non genetically engineered ingredients in food. For example the makers of silver spoon sugar have decided not to use genetically modified sugar beet. But Tate and Lyle have not.

We’ll be passing on this sort of information to our readers to inform their purchases. We’ll also be urging consumers to boycott processed food (some sixty percent of which may contain GMOs) and go for unprocessed food. There is, as yet, no raw or unprocessed food that is on our shelves that contains it. Restaurant reviewers in our ranks will applaud establishments that take a "No gene foods" stance and tell their customers so. Bluntly, food writers have gone to war over gene foods.