The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is working to identify and mitigate risks in the food supply chain so that Canadians are protected from food misrepresentation, which is a common form of food fraud.
As part of the CFIA's food fraud program, between April 2019 and March 2020, the CFIA sampled and tested domestic and imported honey intended for sale in Canada.
A total of 275 samples were collected across Canada and tested for adulteration with foreign sugars using Stable Isotope Ratio Analysis (SIRA) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) methodologies. The 2019-20 sampling approach differed from the previous year in that 2 types of sampling were conducted.
CFIA inspectors collected 127 samples 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. Products sampled included single-ingredient honey products such as bulk and honey for further processing from importers and a small proportion from domestic establishments.
Under Canadian law, honey cannot contain added sugars; otherwise it is considered adulterated and is not allowed to be sold as authentic honey in Canada.
Testing found 87% of the targeted honey samples were authentic, compared to 78% the previous fiscal year. In addition to the targeted sampling by the CFIA, samples were also collected by an independent third-party as part of the agency's marketplace monitoring activity, and CFIA testing showed 98% of those to be authentic.
The CFIA took appropriate enforcement action on the honey that contained added sugars, preventing more than 83,000 kg of adulterated honey from being sold in the Canadian market.
Under the Food Policy for Canada, launched in June 2019, the Government of Canada invested $24.4 million over 5 years to the CFIA to crack down on food fraud in order to protect consumers from deception and companies from unfair competition.
With this funding, the CFIA is conducting inspections, collecting samples, testing foods for authenticity, and gathering intelligence to better target its oversight activities.
The CFIA is also proactively monitoring any increased risk of food fraud that may have arisen from the uncertainties in the global food trade environment as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and finding effective solutions to mitigate them. ■
New York’s The Gateway Development Commission (GDC) Board of Commissioners awarded the contract for the Manhattan Tunnel Project to Frontier-Kemper-Tutor-Perini JV and authorized the notice to proceed with construction.