A spokesman for the Retail Council of Canada says there are a number of hurdles a food product has to pass before it can get to the grocery store shelves.
David Wilkes says the Council's member grocery store chains first require the product to get Health Canada approval.
A recent report questioned whether genetically-modified food products would be available in Canadian grocery stores.
As Wilkes puts it, that conversation doesn't even begin until Health Canada okays the product.
Even that doesn't mean grocers will list it.
Wilkes says grocery retailers will offer a variety of choice to consumers who may not want to buy a genetically-modified product.
Other grocers, he says, may decide not to list the product based on the expectations of their customers.
One U-S state - Vermont - has legislation coming into effect July 1st calling for genetically-modified food products to be labelled accordingly.
A number of major U-S food companies have announced they will be labelling their products nationwide to comply with the Vermont law - rather than trying to restrict the labelling to just one state.
