Taco Bell Will Replace Taco Shells from Restaurants

Sept. 23 -- Taco Bell Corp. has begun replacing taco shells at 7,000 Taco Bell restaurants, because they may contain the same genetically engineered corn found in a supermarket brand pulled from stores this week.

Although the restaurant’s taco shells use a different recipe, both may contain genetically engineered corn not approved for human consumption, and are made by the same company, Sabritas, based in Texas.

On Friday, Kraft Foods pulled millions of packages of taco shells off supermarket shelves after an anti-biotech environmental group found traces of the corn in shells purchased in a Washington suburb. Tests performed for Kraft at an independent lab found similar results, the company said.

“This is definitely a precautionary measure,” Taco Bell spokeswoman Laurie Gannon said today. “While our restaurant taco shells are a different recipe than Kraft’s, we wanted to determine whether ours contain the same unapproved corn variety claimed to be in Kraft’s product.”

The corn, one of the least grown of several biotech varieties,is approved for use only in animal feed because of questions aboutwhether it can cause allergic reactions in people.

Kraft and Taco Bell officials said they know of no apparent threat to human health from the corn.

Gannon said the company has received no consumer health complaints.

Taco Bell uses several taco shell manufacturers. The taco replacement has begun in several restaurants and is scheduled to be completed next Friday.

Guided by One Priority

Kraft, a division of Philip Morris Inc., said it woulddiscontinue production of the shells until it can be sure there isno more of the genetically engineered corn in the meal it buys.

The corn, which contains a bacterium gene that makes it toxic toan insect pest, is produced by Aventis Corp. and goes under thetrade name StarLink.

“As soon as we learned that there might be an issue in thesupply chain we purchased from, we have been guided by onepriority, the safety of our products and their compliance with allregulatory requirements,” said Betsy Holden, Kraft’s chiefexecutive.