cfia (4)

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In 2020 to 2021, the CFIA tested a total of 525 samples for authenticity. Its targeted sampling yielded the following % of satisfactory results:

88.5% honey, 91.2% fish, 87.8% olive oil, 66.2% other expensive oils (such as, sesame seed oil, grapeseed oil, coconut oil, almond oil and others), and 92.9% spices.

Where the results were unsatisfactory, the CFIA took corrective or enforcement action, including products being removed from Canadian market, or their detention, destruction, or relabelling. In the case of honey for example, the following amounts of adulterated honey was prevented from entering the Canadian market.

  • 142 kg of imported honey was voluntarily destroyed
  • 17 800 kg were removed from Canada
  • 10 963 cases and 5 barrels were detained

The results of the CFIA's report on food fraud are being used to inform future sampling and inspection strategies to better target foods that are more likely to be misrepresented.

Read the CFIA News Release or the full report giving all the results of the sampling.

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) conducted targeted surveillance between 2019 and 2020 as part of ongoing efforts to detect honey adulteration with exogenous sugars in both domestic and imported honey sold in Canada. A total of 275 samples were collected across Canada and analysed using Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis (SIRA) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). Two types of honey samples were collected. One group of 127 samples, consisted of single-ingredient honey products such as bulk and honey for further processing from importers and a small proportion from domestic establishments. These were collected from suppliers where the chance of non-compliance was higher, based on risk-factors such as a history of non-compliance, gaps in preventive controls, or unusual trading patterns. The other 148 samples of honey were collected by an independent third party at retailers in various cities across Canada as part of CFIA's compliance monitoring of the marketplace, to gauge overall compliance. Of the targeted samples 17(13%) were considered unsatisfactory from the analytical results of which only 1 was Canadian honey. Of the retail samples, only 3 were considered unsatisfactory, and all of these were imported. As a result of CFIA's actions, an estimated 83,461 kg of adulterated honey was prevented from being sold in the Canadian marketplace between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020.

Read the report, which also gives access to the full analytical results

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Researchers from the University of Guelph in collaboration with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) have found high levels of fish mislabelling in the supply chain starting from imports and increasing as the supply moves along the chain to retail. The research team examined 203 samples from 12 key targeted species collected from various importers (23% of samples), processing plants (5.5%) and retailers (69.5%) in Ontario. The species of fish was identified in the samples using DNA barcoding. The results revealed that overall 32% of the 203 samples were mislabelled, with 17.6 % mislabelling at the import stage, 27.3% at processing plants and 38.1% at retailers. The authors commented that the higher mislabelling rate in samples collected from retailers, compared to that for samples collected from importers, indicates the role of distribution and repackaging in seafood mislabeling. Also, there is a lack of harmonisation in the regulatory framework between for example, Canada and the US, where there is a lack of equivalence in the commercial names given to fish species. This would be improved by giving the scientific name as well. 

Read the article here

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The CFIA has signed a science-sharing MOU with the French Food Regulator (ANSES). The agreement will strengthen and formalise scientific cooperation on innovative research taking place at the CFIA network of 13 reference and research laboratories, and the ANSES network of 11 laboratories throughout France.The collaboration is envisioned to further develop research on genomics, and proteomics.  

Read the article at: CFIA Agreement with ANSES

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