Food processors are having difficulty understanding a federal suggestion that it might exclude some ingredients from its Product of Canada labelling threshold, says a processor leader.
“They are having a hard time understanding how this could work,” Food Processors of Canada president Chris Kyte said in an April 23 interview. “I’m not sure it could work.”
Last week, minister of state for agriculture Jean-Pierre Blackburn said Ottawa is considering changing the rule that a product can only be labelled Product of Canada if at least 98 percent is Canadian ingredient.
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Critics, including processors, have said almost no processed product can meet that threshold because almost all contain some sugar, spice or other ingredients difficult to source in Canada.
Last week, Blackburn said a solution could be to exempt additives such as sugar, spice, salt or vinegar that mainly must be imported.
“The problem was that the producers (processors) told us when they add some sugar or when they add salt or spice or vinegar, they are not able to say this is Product of Canada,” he told a news conference.
Blackburn said he will hold consultations and would like to change threshold by autumn or sooner.
Kyte said the industry preference would be an 85 percent content threshold, as proposed by the House of Commons agriculture committee last year and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, without exemptions. Some sugar, vinegar and salt are produced in Canada.
“I don’t know how Canadian producers would feel about having imports exempted from the rule.”
He said even the labelling system the Conservatives replaced, allowing Product of Canada designation if more than 50 percent of the cost of the product was incurred in Canada, would be better.
“We are competing with Product of the U.S.A. and that is their standard so we have a much lower standard to compete against,” he said.
Critics and consumers have said that standard is deceiving because imported products can be called Canadian product if processing and packaging costs in Canada made up most of the production costs.
Meanwhile, Blackburn also said that by the end of the year, the government plans to produce a food processing plan for the industry, based on what processors say are impediments to their success.
“This action plan aims to strategically address market challenges and position Canada as a world leader in food processing,” he told a news conference.
He said if government financial help is needed, it could come in the next agricultural policy framework due to take effect in 2013.
But Kyte said the industry isn’t looking for money.
“We’re talking about an export policy for out products, a more efficient research and development tax credit program and help getting our products through the holdups at the American border,” he said. “This really isn’t about more money.”
