Food safety crises often lead to better things. The XL Foods recall, the largest in Canadian history, happened just over a year ago, and has arguably had a positive impact on industry and regulations alike. The latest Gort’s Gouda Cheese Farm recall involving raw milk cheeses will likely not be an exception either. In that […] Read more
Stories by Sylvain Charlebois
BSE and the legacy of a national crisis
Most would agree that the discovery of BSE in Canada in May 2003 wasn’t really a food safety crisis, at least in this country. In retrospect, it was primarily a trade crisis. As domestic demand for beef shattered records in Canada that year, 35 countries, including the United States and Japan, overnight issued an embargo […] Read more
Welcome to new normal in food safety
Food traceability, which is a powerful tool to mitigate risks across food supply chains, does not guarantee food safety and integrity. Even so, the challenge of tracking food products and ingredients upstream and downstream touches on the core of what is required to manage risks posed by the new normal in the business of food […] Read more
Happy consumers may buy more food
While America was pondering who to elect as president, California was contemplating Proposition 37. It would have required genetically modified organisms in food to be labelled. It failed at the ballots, but it has inspired a broader referendum about our continental food supply. Some think it could influence Canada’s policies on food labelling in the […] Read more
Happy consumers may buy more food
While America was pondering who to elect as president, California was contemplating Proposition 37. It would have required genetically modified organisms in food to be labelled. It failed at the ballots, but it has inspired a broader referendum about our continental food supply. Some think it could influence Canada’s policies on food labelling in the […] Read more
Allergen labels allow some peace of mind
Canada is not a world leader on food labelling, but it’s close. Many parents and school board bureaucrats across the country probably expressed a sigh of relief when Canada’s new food allergen labelling regulations, ann-ounced in February 2011, came into force Aug. 4. The Canadian food industry was given 18 months to implement the new […] Read more
Embrace the new normal in agriculture
As the worst drought in a half century persists in the United States Midwest crop region, prices for crops soar. Corn recently increased nearly 50 percent in just six weeks, soybeans for August delivery rose 44.5 cents, and wheat prices reached the highest level since the spring of 2008. Not surprisingly, consumers are concerned about […] Read more
Canadian dairy sector needs to adapt
Now that we have clarity on the economic future of the CWB, attention is slowly turning toward the issue of supply management, which has arguably served our agricultural economy well for decades. Supply management controls domestic production and imports for five specific commodities: eggs, milk, chicken, turkey and broiler-hatching eggs. This system regulates domestic production […] Read more
