In Canada’s $22 billion food and consumer products manufacturing sector, this is what passes as a legend.
Not so long ago, an orange juice manufacturer wanted to introduce an enhanced, fortified product into the Canadian market. The regulatory hurdles the company faced to win approval as a food product were so great that it was easier to have it approved as a drug.
“Isn’t that amazing,” said Gemma Zecchini, vice-president of Food and Consumer Products of Canada. “Easier to win approval for a drug product than a food product. That’s a legend in our business.”
Read Also
Stacking Canada up on gene editing livestock
Canada may want to gauge how Argentina and other countries have approached gene editing in livestock and what that has meant for local innovation.
Last week, she told an Ottawa conference on smart regulations that the food manufacturers still face too many dumb ones.
“The food industry is being hollowed and what we heard at the conference is how difficult it is in Canada to innovate because of our regulatory system,” Zecchini said after the conference. “It affects our ability to grow, to invest, to do R and D and to get new products onto the market.”
She said industry profit margins are at two percent of revenues, the lowest in almost a decade. In a recent report on the food industry, the Conference Board of Canada predicted industry profits will decline by 30 percent.
Zecchini said the problem has many layers.
A typical application for product approval takes three to five years to wend its way through the Health Canada regulatory system, while similar products are approved much faster in the European Union and the United States.
Different food regulations and standards in Canada and the U.S. hamper the multibillion-dollar trade in food products.
And the department is slow to change regulations, including a 10-year wait for new food fortification rules that the FCPC says costs the beverage industry $400 million annually.
“We don’t see where our government is coming from on this file,” she said.
The previous Liberal government announced a package of smart regulations and the new Conservative government has assigned treasury board president John Baird to manage the file.
Zecchini said that is a hopeful sign.
“It would be helpful if we could get smart regulation DNA into the workings of Health Canada,” she said. “But progress has been very slow.”
Industry prescriptions range from harmonizing food ingredient and safety regulations with the U.S. to accepting credible product assessments from other jurisdictions.
She said this hurts Canadian farmers because it suppresses demand for Canadian farm products that can be processed.
“When you think of the crisis in farm income right now, low priced commodities are not going to be the saviour,” said Zecchini. “Innovation and new products are the only way to expand the industry and the demand for farm produce.”
