Foreign imports | Inaccurately labelled imports must be stopped at the border, says food official
Consumers and retailers are increasingly being misled by mislabeled products that are not what the labels claim they are, says the head of a food products association.
Nancy Croitoru, president of Food and Consumer Products Canada, told a national food conference April 10 that bogus product claims are increasing.
“We have a huge problem in Canada with counterfeit products coming in with labels that aren’t accurate,” she told a conference on a national food strategy organized by the Conference Board of Canada.
In a later interview, Croitoru said the FCPC has alerted the RCMP and Canadian Food Inspection Agency about the problem. Although the exact value of the bogus products has not been calculated, she said member companies of the association are compiling data to try to make an educated guess.
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“It’s absolutely a big deal and it’s a growing deal,” she said.
“We have information from the RCMP that this is way more profitable than drug trafficking. So it is highly profitable and has much lower penalties.”
She said stricter licensing requirements for food importers and importers contained in recently approved safe food legislation will help. However, the legislation will not take effect until the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has written the required regulations, which is a two-year project.
“That’s going to be a huge help because we just don’t have the en-forcement in this country, we don’t have the people or the dollars,” said Croitoru.
“So we need to stop it before it comes into the country. They’re starting it, but we have a long way to go.”
She said the improper labelling problem mainly affects imports.
Foreign products often make it into Canada with labels that contain no English or French.
“They don’t meet our standards,” she said.
“We don’t know what the ingredients are. How do we know those products are safe? So there is a safety issue but also, we don’t have a level playing field and that has economic implications.”
The issue of counterfeit products is more of a domestic problem, she said.
Empty containers with brand name labels are salvaged on the way to recycling, filled with inappropriate product and sold back to retailers.
Croitoru said there was a recent example of brand name baby formula bottles being filled with rice.
“This problem has serious implications for our members, for retailers and for consumers,” she said.
“It is huge and growing.”
Chicken Farmers of Canada recently raised the alarm about a surge in spent chicken from the United States crossing the border tariff-free and then being relabelled and sold as fresh chicken or mixed with Canadian chicken in products such as nuggets.
CFC says the product took 10 percent of the Canadian chicken market last year.
