Kroger, one of the largest retail grocery chains in the United States, plans to switch to milk free of synthetic hormones.
The announcement from Kroger is another blow to suburban St Louis-based Monsanto Company, which already had been reducing inventory of its milk production-boosting hormone as Starbucks and other retailers rejected it. Monsanto markets the hormone rBST under the brand name Posilac.
Cincinnati-based Kroger says consumer preference – not safety concerns – prompted their decision. The retailer began moving to hormone-free milk earlier this year in Louisiana and Texas stores.