Still ongoing: Fierce debate about GM foods that began with a tomato puree
For a new line of tomato puree, this was quite some launch.
If there was anything in the adage that 'all publicity is good publicity', then the marketing teams at Sainsbury's and Safeway must have thought all their Christmases had come at once back in 1996.
A quarter of a century since Britain's genetically modified food product went on sale in the UK, the debate about such foods still rages fiercely.
North Shropshire MP and former environment secretary Owen Paterson is calling for the liberalisation of the rules on GM foods now that Britain has left the European Union, but others are sceptical about the risks of opening the doors to the new technology too soon.
"We have missed a whole generation which have lost out on the benefits that are being enjoyed by competing agricultural economies," says Mr Paterson.
"We could have made agriculture more productive and used less pesticides, but instead we have missed out on the huge environmental benefits."
Certainly, the information sheets that accompanied the launch of the new tomato puree in Februar, 1996, by British bioscience giant Zeneca, certainly sounded impressive. Whereas normal tomatoes had to be picked while they were still green and artificially ripened by blasting them with gas, the new Flavr Savr toms were specially bred not to rot, meaning they could be left on the vine to ripen naturally. Not only did this mean a better flavour, it meant the product would last longer.
Zeneca's Nigel Poole said: "Everybody wins; the farmer has a longer window for delivery, there is less mould damage, the tomatoes are easier to transport and they are better for processing."
And on top of that, the process needed less energy and water, meaning the new puree was 18 per cent cheaper than the regular brands.
No wonder if flew off the shelves – for a while.
