I hear via an employee of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency that this blog's editorial about the lack of surprise inspections has prompted a superior to notify staff that from now on, they are to stop giving egg-grading stations advance notice of inspections, including audits to determine compliance with HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) protocols.
Now, I hope the CFIA adds to that another directive to stop providing egg farmers with advance notice of audits of their premises. And the Egg Farmers of Ontario marketing board might even catch on and conduct some random and surprise inspections to determine compliance with its regulations, including bird counts for quota control.
The egg board might also conduct a few random and surprise inspections to determine whether eggs produced and marketed under its eggs-for-processing program are all moving to breaking plants and into the industrial-eggs market. There is obviously a huge temptation to move some of those eggs into the higher-priced table market, so it would seem prudent to instill a degree of fear of being caught cheating.
