Food retailers | Conference Board of Canada says demands from buyers are burdening food businesses, producers
Demands from food retailers for private production and quality standards on products they sell are costly and bureaucratic burdens on producers and processors, say industry officials.
Last week, the Conference Board of Canada issued a report that called for government and industry to create national standards, including government moves “to incorporate formal recognition of private standards systems.”
The report Pathway to Partnership said private industry food requirements that often exceed or contradict government requirements have created costs and confusion.
“The proliferation of private standards puts new burdens on food businesses, which bear the costs of audits and certifications in addition to the costs of existing regulatory compliance,” said the report. “There is also the question of how much the multiplicity of private standards can be counted on to protect the public interest.”
Read Also
Research looks to control flea beetles with RNAi
A Vancouver agri-tech company wants to give canola growers another weapon in the never-ending battle against flea beetles.
The “private standards” imposed by market-powerful major food retails including Walmart, Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s can range from requirements for food safety practices on the farm or in processing plants to the environmental footprint of food production or the treatment of animals on the farm.
Often it is part of a marketing campaign.
Northern Ontario beef farmer and Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett said the growth of product standard demands is a cost and a hurdle for producers.
“When you have different buyers imposing different standards to appease shareholders or customers, that includes costs in the system that get passed down to the processors and often ultimately to the farmer,” he said in an interview. “Government requirements already impose costs that are necessary in the system and some customers demand more.”
It also injects confusion into the food system about what requirements are needed.
“It really is an issue and it is growing,” said Canadian Meat Council director of government and media relations Ron Davidson. “Different standards demanded by different customers really do add inefficiencies and costs to the system.”
The Conference Board report recommended that governments work with private companies to develop standards that work for consumers and the industry, although there was no recommendation on how standards can accommodate constantly escalating industry requirements.
“Achieving food system objectives requires contributions by both private and public sectors and those of the private sector will likely become more important in the future,” sais the report. “Private standards seem to offer a pathway for improved public-private cooperation to help address these challenges.”
However, it warned that to be part of the picture, private food standards should demonstrate “effectiveness and reliability” and create the conditions for “more efficient and effective food system governance.”
The Conference Board, which hosts a second national food policy convention in Toronto in April and issued the report in preparation for the conference, said a national effort to standardize rules is important to end confusion and costs in the industry.
“Reducing these inefficiencies could free up regulatory resources that may be better allocated to areas of greater priority,” it said.
The report recommended that federal and provincial governments “jointly agree to develop a national concurrence system that would eliminate unnecessary costs and system duplication and begin to incorporate formal recognition of private standards systems.”
