Canadians put food labels under microscope as complaints of mislabelling rise

Retail expert Doug Stephens discusses the complaints being launched by consumers and what’s behind the increased in error.

As concerns over food labelling grow, more Canadians are scrutinizing packaging to verify whether products are genuinely made in the country amid efforts to support local businesses in wake of tariff tensions with the U.S.

Complaints about incorrect labels are on the rise, prompting the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to investigate.

Retail expert Doug Stephens says the increase is due to a shift in consumer awareness.

“Canadians are now scrutinizing labels in a way that perhaps many of us have never done before,” Stephens said in an interview with CTV Your Morning on Monday. “(We’re) looking for the point of origin of these products.”

The CFIA said the “product of Canada” designation has become increasingly mislabelled, while some products are missing information about their country of origin.

The “product of Canada” label means all, or nearly all, of the food, processing and labour used to make the product is Canadian – meaning it is grown or raised by Canadian farmers, and prepared and packaged in Canada.

The CFIA said it has not received any complaints about manufacturers mislabelling their products as “made in Canada” or incorrectly claiming they are 100 per cent Canadian.

The made in Canada label can be applied to items when “the last substantial transformation of the product occurred in Canada.”

For example, the CFIA says the processing of cheese, dough, sauce and other ingredients to create a pizza would be considered a substantial transformation.

A third designation, the maple leaf symbol does not have a standardized definition, which can lead to further confusion.

The CFIA says use of the Maple Leaf on food packaging does not always mean that the product is wholly or partially Canadian but is often used to denote something is a “product of Canada.”

To avoid confusion, the agency recommends food companies include a domestic content statement with the image, but many firms don’t follow that advice.

“There should be something else on the product that actually gives you a better indication of exactly what proportion of that product is manufactured, either with Canadian ingredients, or was actually produced with Canadian labour,” Stephens says.

“If you don’t see that explanation, or you don’t see that qualifier, then buyer beware,” he added.

The Competition Bureau enforces the use of these terms on non-food items.

According to the bureau, the product of Canada label can only be used on non-food items when at least 98 per cent of the costs of producing or manufacturing the good have been incurred domestically.

Non-food items advertised as made in Canada should have at least 51 per cent of their production or manufacturing costs come from the country.

Mislabelling carries consequences for businesses, with penalties reaching hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars for non-food items under the Competition Act.

“We’ve been seeing grocers in a very short period of time, if we give them the benefit of the doubt here, trying to organize their stores in such a way that it makes navigation easier for consumers,” Stephens said.

As some Canadians petition, pressure is mounting on all grocery stores to prominently display “product of Canada” stickers.

With files from The Canadian Press