IT WAS late last year when the president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency met with senior executives of Canada’s meat and poultry processor industry to discuss a serious industry concern.
There were issues in the air – animal disease, over-quota imports and consumer concerns about food safety among them.
But these were not the top-of-mind issues during that meeting in Ottawa.
The issue, according to a briefing note for the CFIA president in preparation for the meeting, was why “bacon-style” could not be used on a label to describe a turkey product. The Further Poultry Processors Association of Canada had complained.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
In fact, CFIA already had decided that “poultry-style bacon” and “poultry bacon-style” would be allowed once rules were changed. “Bacon-style” also could be used on poultry products trying to compete in the breakfast meat market, but only if it did not attempt a free ride on the credibility that the bacon brand has in the market.
There were limits. The agency, according to briefing notes obtained by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin under Access to Information rules, was encouraging poultry processing companies to use such alternative descriptions as “breakfast strips.”
An earlier letter to the industry made clear the limits under the meat inspection regulations that specify “bacon must be derived from a pig.”
Changes to the regulations were being proposed to loosen the definition but for the moment, the rules were clear.
“Poultry bacon-style” or “poultry bacon” or “poultry ham” were not acceptable.
“If the CFIA does not decide that it is appropriate to amend the regulations to allow for the use of these terms, alternative terms will have to be employed by the industry,” said the memo to the CFIA president.
On one level, this worry seems absurd. Surely the national regulator that manages (or mismanages) multi-billion dollar issues like BSE and avian influenza should not be spending time trying to define what is bacon and what can claim to be bacon-like.
But in fact, labelling claims are among the most contentious issues in the modern food industry.
The dairy sector spent tens of thousands of dollars and much energy to finally force the soybean industry to quit calling its soy beverage “soy milk.”
In the World Trade Organization, regional and product labelling is a huge issue. The European Union, for example, has been insistent that upstart wine industries in places like Canada cannot use names like “champagne” that refer to products from a specific area of wine production in France. Canada and the EU have been negotiating on this issue for years.
The point is that brand is important.
Milk has a place in the consumer psyche. Nature’s perfect food. Good for the bones.
Soy milk tries to catch a ride on that market credibility.
So does a product called “poultry bacon.”
Studies have shown that an amazing number of people who claim they don’t eat pork do eat bacon and eggs.
Bacon has a strong brand as a breakfast food, not pork. A product called “poultry bacon” tries to cash in on that brand.
Branding is a huge issue in food retailing.
It means that CFIA obsessing about this is not a bad thing at all, just a portent of the future.
