GM Strawberry

Market Status

May 2025: There are no genetically engineered (genetically modified or GM) strawberries on the market but the company Simplot is seeking to commercialize one or more gene-edited GM strawberries in the US and Canada.

The GM Strawberry

There are no GM strawberries on the market yet but the US agriculture company Simplot and the biotechnology company Plant Sciences, Inc. have partnered to genetically modify strawberries using the new genetic engineering techniques of gene editing:

In 2021, Simplot announced it would use gene editing to try to develop strawberries with extended shelf-life.
In December 2024, Simplot stated its intention to start selling a gene-edited strawberry in Canada as soon as 2025, gene-edited for a longer harvest season (remontant).

Plant Sciences Inc. says “PSI is also aggressively preparing for its first commercial releases of blackberry and blueberry varieties.”

Simplot has not yet responded to inquiries from CBAN (May 20, 2025).

Gene editing, or genome editing, is a collection of new genetic engineering (genetic modification or GM) techniques that alter the genetic material (usually DNA) of plants, animals and other organisms. Click here to read more about genome editing.

Simplot’s gene edited strawberry represents increasing corporate control over seed varieties and the beginning of many types of GM fruits and vegetables. Releasing these GM seeds puts non-GMO plants at risk of contamination, threatening the tradition of seed-saving and the preservation of heritage varieties. GM contamination also threatens organic farmers’ livelihoods because organics prohibits the use of GMOs. Read CBAN’s report on the incidents of GMO escape and contamination in Canada.

The heartberry

“Language is very important in relation to food. Not only the hand-to-mouth food piece but actually the production of food, the growing, the seeding, everything in relation to food. We need to know who we are, and our identity comes from language. The name for strawberry in our language is Ode’imin. When we dissect that language, we take that word “ode” which means the heart and “min” means the berry, and we put those two words together- Ode’imin, means the heartberry. And when you look at it, it looks like the heart. When you cut it in half it looks like the heart inside, when you look at it on the ground you see the leaves and then you see what they call the runners, little veins on mother earth. That’s exactly what food sovereignty is to me, is to understand and to communicate with mother earth.” – Byron Beardy, 2018.

This quote has been shared with CBAN by permission of Byron Beardy who gave a personal reflection and teaching about the Ode’imin, heartberry, at the 2018 Agroecology Field School at Just Food Farm in Ottawa. Mr. Beardy is the Program Manager for Four Arrows Regional Health Authority Inc.’s Kimeechiminan (Our Food) – Food Security department and is of Anishininiw ancestry originally from Garden Hill First Nation and was raised in Wasagamack First Nation of the Island Lake region in Manitoba.