"The federal government has abruptly stopped testing grocery store product labels for exaggerated nutrition claims and unproven health claims.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency put the sampling program "on hold indefinitely due to budgetary constraints" after test results from previous years showed widespread problems with food labels on store shelves, according to internal records released under access to information.
The controversial decision was taken just days before the 2011/12 fiscal year started in April, minutes of a meeting of high-level officials show. A "post-meeting addendum" further clarified that all "retail surveys" have been postponed.
Inspectors will continue to follow up on consumer complaints.
The move to pull the plug on the random sampling of a specific number of food products in stores follows a decision earlier this year to suspend another project that policed nutrition claims made by chain restaurants and coffee shops.
That project, the menu verification program, was launched a few years ago at coffee shops and quick-service restaurants after many of the big chains began to make fat-related claims and to provide nutrition numbers for their standard menu items, usually on their websites or in brochures.
Test results previously released under access to information showed unsatisfactory results related to fat claims were not uncommon. For example, according to monitoring tests conducted between 2007 and 2009, fat-related claims for 14 out of 33 menu items offered at fast food restaurants such as McDonald's, KFC and Taco Bell understated the fat content.
Test results from CFIA's store samples from 2007 to 2010 showed problems with nutrition information and health claims on food packaging were even more common. For example, CFIA found that 79 out of 161 snack products tested (49 per cent) displayed incorrect composition claims about sodium, fats or other nutrients, in violation of Canada's labelling rules.
Of 52 samples of oils, spreads and margarines, 25 (48 per cent) failed to comply with CFIA's "quality" labelling rules.
Reasons included: misleading nutrient claims about omega fatty acids, vitamin E or cholesterol; inaccurate trans fatty acid and non-hydrogenated claims; or bogus claims such as "freshpressed" and "premium grade."
A second addendum to the March 30, 2011 minutes said CFIA also decided to put on hold the targeted testing of items at food processing plants in cases where inspectors had identified concerns, such as possible sanitary problems.
But CFIA confirmed Thursday that the decision on "sampling with cause," also known as inspection sampling, was not implemented. The agency also defended the decision to put its retail sampling program on hold.
"Inspection is the method by which the CFIA assesses compliance, and sampling is a tool that may be used during an inspection to help determine compliance.
"If compliance can be determined through inspection observations, then the additional resources required to conduct sampling may not be justified," the agency said.
Ken Whitehurst, executive director of Consumers Council of Canada, said the program was valuable, both as an enforcement tool and as a way to gather information about where enforcement resources should be directed under the agency's "riskbased" model.
"We have laws, sometimes even strong laws, but enforcement has been under-funded," he said Thursday.
"If people want people who provide consumer protection to not just be holed up in offices and to know what's going on, then collectively we've all got to be prepared to pay for consumer protection, whether it's on the government enforcement side or otherwise," said Whitehurst."
Guss what's eventually coming here? First, Big Food won a potato-and-pizza battle with the government over school lunches, and I bet this total lack of health claims enforcement is coming next "due to budgetary constraints." Canada needs a Ralph Nader.
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