Brazil, the largest exporter of meat products in the world, faces a food fraud crisis — and it seems federal authorities have been complicit. There’s a lesson here for Canada. Brazilian authorities recently announced they would investigate several companies, including meat packing giants JBS SA and BRF SA. The companies are accused of bribing licensed […] Read more
Stories by Sylvain Charlebois
Cheap food challenges food industry
Making money in the food business isn’t nearly as simple as it once was. It’s becoming cheaper to buy food in Canada — prices fell in August for the first time in years in every province except Alberta. And the Statistics Canada data may indicate the start of significant ongoing food deflation. But while consumers […] Read more
Bayer may give GMO new lease on life
Putting Monsanto out of its misery could shift future debates about genetically modified crops to arguments based on fact rather than emotion. Agricultural chemical and seed technology giant Monsanto is arguably the most detested company in the world. But Bayer’s acquisition of St. Louis-based Monsanto will likely mean the latter (or at least its brand) […] Read more
China may wane as meat export market
China is one of the world’s largest meat consumers. It currently consumes 28 percent of the globe’s meat, including half of its pork. While the average Chinese consumer used to eat about 13 kilograms years ago, meat consumption is now up to 63 kilograms per person. These are staggering numbers, and if nothing changes, they […] Read more
Canada’s food costs not hard to swallow
Food unites us all and Canada is certainly not immune to global pressures affecting food systems. Food price hikes these days have no borders, or so it seems. Prices have gone up in Canada, but also in other countries. While summer is a great time to get reacquainted with our BBQ, it’s also a time […] Read more
Consumers explore beef alternatives
North American consumers are starting to notice price in-creases at the meat counter. Meat prices in the United States jumped 8.4 percent in April from the previous year, while meat prices in Canada are likely to go up by five to six percent this year. Given that meat prices barely rose over the previous two […] Read more
Canada’s global trade awakening begins
Two new trade deals have given Canadian agriculture a much-needed lift in recent months. The new potential openings in the Europe Union and South Korea are timely, coming in the wake of the behemoth $1 trillion U.S. farm bill that clearly undermines the Canadian livestock industry with its protectionist country-of-origin labelling rules. Canada’s true global […] Read more
The new U.S. farm bill is so unCOOL
The new American farm bill contains significant bad news for Canada. Signed by president Barack Obama a few weeks ago, this $956 billion deal will increasingly isolate America from the global agrifood market, and the once strongly integrated North American agricultural economy will become progressively less fluid. Frankly speaking, this strategy appears to suggest that […] Read more
CFIA should release food test results
The organic movement was served a toxic dish recently when the media disclosed that a Canadian Food In-spection Agency study suggests organic food contains pesticide residues. The report claimed that half of a sample of organic products randomly tested had traces of pesticides. To explain why results were not disseminated when the study was completed […] Read more
Consumers need info to reduce food waste
Increasing concerns about food waste in the West recently led a former top executive in the food retail business to develop a business model in which food waste is reduced upstream from consumers. His concept, The Daily Table, is proposed as a chain of hybrid grocery store-restaurants cooking on-site with expired food products and then […] Read more
