Thread by @hbottemiller

*A thread* Big changes are happening in the food landscape here in Washington. The industry's main lobby (@GroceryMakers) is trying to reboot after a mass exodus of members (@Nestle, @MarsGlobal, @TysonFoods, etc) left GMA half the size it once was.

I recently sat down w/GMA's new president & CEO Geoff Freeman to chat about how the group is navigating the fact that food companies disagree on a growing list of issues, from nutrition to climate, as consumer tastes and demands are rapidly changing. Sharing a few takeaways...

Freeman is shaking things up. GMA is now pulling back from thorny fights over things like nutrition and pressing to be a broader umbrella group for CPG companies.

"We're not the food industry. It's probably the most striking thing to realize about this new organization."

One of the big issues that divided companies during the Obama admin was whether GMA should oppose or support a @MichelleObama-championed plan to mandate added sugars labeling on the Nutrition Facts label. GMA members were so divided the group submitted split comments.

Freeman sees this as something GMA shouldn't have gotten tangled in. "Why did GMA need to be the tip of the spear on sugar? We have a Sugar Association — we have a confectioners [group], we have a beverage [group], we have umpteen other organizations that are focused there." ...

"My job is to build an agenda that is uniting at all times 80 percent of the industry. If we're getting neck-deep on sugar or neck-deep on issues where two-thirds of the membership is saying, 'Not my fight,' alarm bells should be going off..." - Freeman

After GMA lobbied for a national GMO disclosure law (in response to Vermont mandating on-pack labeling), USDA recently decided in a rule that most ingredients from GMO crops wont have to be disclosed-a decision that angered food companies who felt it created a massive loophole.

Q: Do you think there is a lesson to be learned from that lobbying effort, and where things ended up, which is that most genetically-engineered ingredients are exempt from mandatory disclosure?

"To a degree, GMA won the battle and lost the war. We got to the right outcome, but we didn't get a lot of the benefit of getting to that right outcome. We got there in sort of an ugly way." - Freeman

.... "The rule doesn't create the opportunity to strengthen trust; it does create more confusion, and that's the type of thing we've got to fix." - Freeman

Q: Are there other issues that branded food companies are facing now that they weren't five years ago?

"This is the one industry where consumers change the industry at a speed that is so much greater than regulators or policymakers could ever consider...How do you become an association that is relevant when it's the consumer that is driving policy in so many regards?" - Freeman

"I got an e-mail from my wife recently about 10 wines that were found to have traces of glyphosate in there and, 'Honey, we can't drink these anymore.' It's like, 'Oh no! Don't do this to me! I have to do this at work!'" - Freeman

GMA is now looking to focus on a new set of less controversial issues: removing supply chain barriers (for ex: trucker shortages), promoting sustainable packaging efforts, and ensuring there's not a patchwork of food regs at state level.

.@POLITICOPro subscribers can read by full interview with Freeman here: subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2019/0…

You can also brush up on backstory behind GMA's big break up from me and @ceboudreau here: politico.com/story/2017/11/…

Interesting times! 🥫/*End thread*