Federal government cracking down on food fraud from manufacturers

OTTAWA — The CFIA’s newly published Food Fraud Annual Report: 2020 to 2021 outlines the results of its enhanced surveillance activities to test the authenticity of 5 foods: honey, fish, olive oil, other expensive oils (such as, sesame seed oil, grapeseed oil, coconut oil and others), and spices. Overall, CFIA’s testing showed 4 of the 5 commodities had satisfactory results above 87% while expensive oils (other than olive oil) had 66% satisfactory results. These 5 foods were selected as they are commonly reported as products likely to be misrepresented.

In instances where the results were unsatisfactory, the CFIA took corrective or enforcement action, including products being removed from Canada, or their detention, destruction, or relabelling. The results of the CFIA’s work are being used to inform future sampling and inspection strategies to better target foods that are more likely to be misrepresented.

“Consumers expect food labels to be truthful and accurate. Through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada our government is working closely to tackle food fraud so consumers can trust that food is accurately represented and safe.” said Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Health.

“Food fraud is a tactic that deceives consumers and is unfair to our agriculture and agri-food producers. Our government takes this situation seriously and is working to ensure that we maintain a fair competitive environment for the benefit of the general public and the vast majority of entrepreneurs who comply with regulatory requirements.” said Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.

The CFIA works with Canada’s food manufacturing industry to promote compliance and provides them with tools to help meet regulatory requirements. These include the Industry Labelling Tool, traceability interactive tool, the Automated Import Reference System, and the CFIA Fish List.