We recently tested six of New Zealand’s most popular supermarket breads for glyphosate, its breakdown product AMPA, and glufosinate.
As part of our ongoing crowdfunded testing series, we sent six widely available supermarket breads for analysis to see what might really be in our daily bread. The loaves tested were:
Tip Top Super Soft White Toast
Tip Top Oatilicious Sandwich
Woolworths Essentials White Sandwich
Pams Wholemeal Toast
Burgen Mixed Grain Toast
Vogel’s Original Mixed Grain
All six loaves came back with the same result:
- No glyphosate detected above 0.05 mg/kg (50 ppb)
- No AMPA detected above 0.05 mg/kg (50 ppb)
- No glufosinate detected above 0.006 mg/kg (6 ppb)
In other words, none of the breads tested showed residues above the laboratory’s reporting threshold. That’s the good news.
What This Really Means
It’s important to be clear: “not detected” does not mean “not present.”
The lab method used for bread could only measure glyphosate at levels of 50 ppb or higher. By contrast, our honey and cereal tests were much more sensitive, picking up residues as low as 2 ppb. In fact, many of the residues we found in honey and breakfast cereals (ranging from 2 to 12 ppb) would have been invisible in this bread test.
So while these results suggest supermarket bread is not heavily contaminated, we can’t say with confidence that it’s glyphosate-free. It may simply be that residues, if present, are too low for this particular test to detect.
How Does This Compare Overseas?
Testing in the UK, France, and Germany has found glyphosate residues in bread, usually in the 10–40 ppb range. That’s lower than the reporting threshold used here. In other words, if New Zealand breads contained similar residues, they would still have come back as “not detected” in our test.
Final Thought
On the surface, New Zealand supermarket bread looks clean. But when testing methods can only detect residues above 50 ppb, there’s still a blind spot. The next step will be to carry out more sensitive testing — at levels comparable to international standards, as we’ve already achieved with our honey and cereal results. Only then will we know whether glyphosate is truly absent from our daily bread, or simply hidden below the limits of detection. Watch this space.
Related No More Glyphosate NZ Testing
Glyphosate in NZ Honey — First Test Results
Our very first round of honey testing revealed glyphosate residues in popular retail jars, proving contamination had made its way into a product marketed as natural and pure.
Glyphosate in Honey — Test Results: Batch 2
A follow-up round confirmed the trend, with several well-known brands again showing detectable residues — highlighting the persistence of glyphosate in New Zealand’s food chain.
Weet-Bix Glyphosate Test Results
Testing of Sanitarium Weet-Bix found glyphosate residues, raising questions about one of New Zealand’s most iconic breakfast foods and its place in children’s daily diets.
Glyphosate in Breakfast Foods
Independent testing of a range of cereals showed residues across multiple brands, confirming that glyphosate exposure is not limited to a single product.
Glyphosate in Honey — Test Results: Batch 3
Our latest round of honey testing is underway, with results due shortly. This will provide an updated snapshot of glyphosate contamination in one of New Zealand’s most valued exports.
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