The Flav Savr was the first geneticallly modified food to be commercially marketed, it was created in 1990 by the Californian company Calgene. Flav Savr was gentically made to take longer to decompose longer after it was picked.
Dr Arpad Pusztai of the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen in 1998 published research that GM potatoes, modified with an insecticide gene taken from the snowdrop, were toxic to rats in feeding trials.
The Labour party in the U.K announced in 1999 farm scale food trials to study the effects of crops engineered to being more resistant to herbicide.However, the trials were criticised because of the threat posed to neighbouring crops and honey by cross-pollination.
Critics at that time said that they would give a very restricted view of potential long term effects of the environmental impacts caused by the new technology.
In September 1999, pollen from GM oilseed rape, grown at a trials in Oxfordshire, was discovered at beehives 4.5 kms away. Shortly after in March 2000 honey sold in supermarkets were contaminated with GM pollen from British crop trials. Out of nine samples two were found to be contaminated.
Soon after many countries across the world started to emerge with different opinions on GM Foods being accepted across the world. Many companies have started on producing GM foods though many pull out claming that many goverments apply too many policies forcing them to pull out and stop production for example GM Maize in the U.K.
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