Very few GMO products can be found across Europe's 30 major retailers, nearly all of which have a non-biotech policy for the entire EU or at least in their main European markets, it said.

This contrasts starkly with the United States, where most supermarket foods have some GMO content and many consumers shrug off claims by green groups that these may be harmful.

Of the thousands of items stocked in European supermarkets, Greenpeace said it found only 77 GMO-labelled products in 10 EU countries, as of November 2004, mostly in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Czech and Slovak Republics.

These products tended to be GMO soyoil or other items imported from Canada, Japan, Korea and the United States.

Consumer scepticism over GM0 food ranges from mild distrust to outright hostility and is estimated at more than 70 percent, deterring shops from ramping up small ranges of biotech foods.

"There has been a prolonged and at times intense public, political and scientific debate about the dangers of GM crops, which has had a number of results," the Greenpeace report said.

"One of the most significant has been the strong and consistent rejection of GM food by well-informed consumers and the change that they have caused in the policies of the European food industry."

Many European retail chains already guarantee that their own-brand products are free of GMO ingredients and say there is no reason to change this unless consumers request GMO products.

Greenpeace conceded that retailers might be stocking GMO-labelled products from other sources. Some companies had only introduced a non-GMO policy on own brands after pressure from customers, not due to any anti-biotech sentiment, it said.

LOOPHOLE IN BIOTECH LAWS?

At present, products from around 18 GMOs may be marketed in the EU. These include types of GMO soy, maize and rapeseed - which appear in items such as ketchups and snack foods.

Non-biotech food products may have a maximum 0.9 percent GMO content without having to be labelled, essential for retailers in countries where there is high consumer resistance to GMOs.

But EU labelling laws do not apply to dairy, eggs and beef coming from animals that have eaten GMO feed, or to foods made with the help of a GMO enzyme, like some bakery products.

For green groups, this is a huge loophole in EU legislation.