WINNIPEG — Food fraud in China could damage Canada’s reputation as a supplier of high quality beef.
During a recent trip to China, Canada Beef Inc. president Rob Meijer discovered some substandard beef in a high-end retail store bearing the Canada Beef brand.
As far as he could tell, it was re-packaged product with an off colour that could have come from anywhere. Poor quality product sold with a Canadian label could damage reputations because consumers won’t know it is probably not Canadian, said Meijer.
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“It was basically a knock off,” he said at the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association foreign trade meeting in Winnipeg.
Reports of fake handbags and electronics in China are common but Canada Beef is unsure how to handle the situation involving beef.
“It will be a tough nut to crack and we probably are not alone in it,” said John Masswohl of the CCA.
A new Chinese food safety law comes into effect in October and has provisions for truth in advertising but it may have to be complaint driven, he added.
The new law is partly intended to protect domestic and foreign companies from food scandals, said a report from the business news service China Briefing.
The report said more Chinese citizens are choosing imported products because they don’t trust domestic ones.
Frauds like the one involving melamine in infant formula, which killed six babies and sickened thousands of others in 2008, have affected confidence.
Such incidents also make Canadian packers reluctant to pursue business in China even though market access is slowly improving.
“Canadian packers are still a bit skittish. It is not that they don’t want to trade but perhaps it is about some of these things going on and maintaining the integrity of their supply chain,” said Meijer.
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