The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is Canada's leading authority on food fraud oversight. This report shares how they prevented a significant amount of misrepresented food from being sold in Canada.
Between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024, the CFIA conducted a number of activities to prevent, detect and deter food fraud. Activities included:
- monitoring and analyzing risks and planning mitigation activities
- promoting awareness
- working with international counterparts
- advancing research and method development
- targeting surveillance and taking enforcement action where appropriate.
CFIA conducted 2 types of sampling during this timeframe: marketplace monitoring sampling (also referred to as targeted surveys) and targeted inspectorate sampling.
- Marketplace monitoring sampling involves samples collected by an independent third party contracted by the CFIA and occurs only at retail stores to gauge overall compliance of certain food products in the Canadian marketplace. 323 marketplace monitoring samples (coconut water, fresh meat, spices, sunflower oil, tea) were assessed to detect specific types of misrepresentation through laboratory analysis. Results demonstrated high compliance, except for coconut water which was lower.
- Targeted inspectorate sampling involves inspection and sampling by CFIA inspectors at different types of food businesses such as importers, domestic processors and retailers. The likelihood of finding non-compliance is higher because it targets food businesses associated with risk factors such as a history of non-compliance, gaps in preventive controls or unusual trading patterns. 712 targeted samples (fish, honey, meat, olive oil, organic fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, other expensive oils, grated hard cheese, fruit juice, other foods) were assessed to detect specific types of misrepresentation through laboratory analysis. CFIA also conducted 345 label verifications, including basic label verifications and net quantity verifications. Overall, compliance rates were similar to previous years. Highlights include:
- grated hard cheese, olive oil and other expensive oils had the lowest satisfactory rates for authenticity testing, whereas fish, fruit juice, meat and honey had the highest.
- fish, olive oil and other expensive oils had the lowest compliance rates for label verifications, while organic fresh fruit and vegetables, grated hard cheese and other foods had the highest.
Read full report here.
Read more on CFIA's role in combatting food fraud.
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