A study outlining industry's perceptions and practices around food fraud was released by Le Conseil de la transformation alimentaire du Québec (CTAQ). The study, Perceptions et préoccupations de l'industrie agroalimentaire canadienne face aux défis de la fraude alimentaire, was conducted by l'Université Laval and several agrifood research organizations.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) welcomes this study as it offers a better understanding of industry's perceptions when it comes to food fraud. The CFIA supports the initiative taken by industry to strengthen its measures to prevent and detect fraud.
The CFIA takes food fraud seriously and is committed to collaborating with industry to discover better ways to address it. The CFIA works closely with the food industry to promote compliance and provides various tools to help companies verify that their food labels meet all the regulatory requirements, such as the industry labelling tool. Meanwhile, it is industry's responsibility to make sure they comply with regulatory requirements.
New provisions under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations – such as preventive controls, traceability and licensing – will contribute to food safety and will provide effective tools to help the CFIA address food fraud. The new traceability requirements require food businesses to keep records to allow a food to be followed from one point in the supply chain to another.
While the traceability requirements are driven by food safety, they could facilitate traceback during an investigation on food fraud. Being able to track the path of a food in the supply chain can significantly reduce the time it takes businesses to remove unsafe or fraudulent food from the market, better protect Canadians, and increase confidence in Canada's food safety system.
The CFIA will continue to enforce Canada's food laws, develop new detection methods, implement surveillance and enforcement strategies, and work with industry and other stakeholders to address the issue of food fraud.