Budweiser Vetos Genetically Modified Rice

fishdan writes "Anheuser-Busch the makers of Budweiser and other beers, has stated that they will not buy rice from Missouri if genetically modified crops are allowed in the state. Budweiser is claimed to be the best selling beer in the world Bud Light is the second best selling. I wonder about the stats of Tsing Tao I'm not sure what they're afraid of from genetically modified rice. Do they think their beer could get any worse?"

Comments

because not only americans drink it

[feandil]

there are plenty of people in the world who do not want anything to do with biotech food or drinks, so if it was known that budweiser contain GMO their sales would plummet in the world, especially in europe.

Re:because not only americans drink it

[sfjoe]

Beer isn't the only thing. California has banned GM rice because the largest consumer of California rice is Japan and they will NOT buy GM rice.
Personally, I haven't made up my mind one way or another. However, having been lied to any number of times by people whose only motivation is profit, the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt is on the corporations.

Business opportunity!

[TripMaster Monkey]

I see a clever new business opportunity here:

GenetiBrau: the Beer made from 100% genetically modified ingredients!

(I'd drink it.)

This decision on GM rice says a lot about....

[scupper]

what Anheuser-Busch thinks of it's customers, about who they see as their potential new customers, and how they approach advertising to them.

They are fearful, not of the average white american's reaction to GM rice, but of the reaction from Hispanics, who are coming from agrarian cultures, and are doubly suspicious of any gm agri products, especially corn and rice.

Hispanics also represent the fastest growing group of drinkers of "Bud".

Re:To hear many foreigners talk about US beer

[afabbro]

In my experience, 99% of people who say "American beer sucks" or only drink micro- or foreign brews would happily drink Budweiser if it was named something else. Give them a glass of Bud and tell them it's Pete's Wicked Spring Blonde Ale or something and they'll coo about the taste.

Most people are idiots. Pretentious beer drinks are worse.

(I don't drink beer. I'm pretentious about high-end vodkas).

Wikipedia on Budweiser

Re:To hear many foreigners talk about US beer

[Captain Splendid]

Pretentious beer drinker here...

Simply put, Budweiser tastes like hobo ass. The only lager that tastes worse, IMO is Foster's. They both have the defining characteristic of wickedly nasty aftertaste.

As a Guinness drinker, I'm blond-beer biased anyway, but in those rare instances when that's not available, there's a dozen beers I'd rather have first. Heineken is quite smooth, Castlemaine XXXX has a nice punch to it, for example.

Disclaimer: I have not tried any of the American bargain beers: Pabst, Schlitz, Colt 45, etc., so I could ultimately be wrong.

Re:Another Misleading Story...

[gstoddart]

In fact, there is nothing that says they are even against GM rice--just rice being modified to produce drugs grow outside, where it can potentially crosspollinate with rice meant for consumption.

Yes, Budweiser hasn't said "no GMOs", they're afraid of this particular crop.

That's true.

But every single one of these damned GM plants that have been deployed have cross-pollenated and caused problems. Monsanto's wheat being the most eggregious example.

I'm absolutely terrified by all of this stuff, because it won't take long before the native species we started with are all wiped out in favour of these GMOs.

In this case, even though we can do this to a plant, I'm not 100% sure we should until we know how to control it/fix it.

Re:Not Exactly

[glesga_kiss]

I am all for genetic engineering of pretty much everything, including things I stuff in my mouth... [snip] ...so long as there is nothing in them that could potentially be harmful.

And thanks to you (and your children), we'll all know if they are harmful in about 10/20 years. There have been many things hailed as harmless by the companies hawking them; absbestos, Thalidomide (v. nasty), tobacco blah blah blah. They are just molecules, now we're talking genes. God, how often do we hear of the "unknown long term effects of Ecstacy" been touted as reason not to take it?

If you want to take their word for it being "harmless", then I am quite glad to have you as my guinea pig!! :-)

The problem is not that Anheuser-Busch is worried about pissing off Europe. The problem is that a drug company wants to produce rice designed to create a drug in open fields. Anheuser-Busch doesn't want that rice to contaminate their rice.

Opinions here in Europe on GM are mostly sceptical. "GM free" is a selling point, and Bud cares about how many units it shifts more than anything else on the planet. If there rice were to be contaminated, it would definately make the news and cost them sales. No one would be pissed off, they just wouldn't sell any.

Sales of Bud aren't as high as they once were say 10 years ago. It's got an "asshole" stigma about it here now; it's kinda what US style "jocks" would drink if I were to think of an equivalent social group to what we have here. European beers had lots of ad drives over the last while, and frankly few could argue that Bud wins on taste. So, bud took a pasting. Risking further losses would be dangerous as they have investments in "brewed under license" franchises.