The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has posted a report on its investigations into food fraud and gave the following compliance perctages.
By implication, the rest involved fraud.
Honey 84 per cent compliance; the most common fraud is adding sugar.
Meat 98 per cent; the most common cheating is a cheaper meat than what’s claimed.
Olive oil 83 per cent; cheaper oils are substituted.
Other expensive oils 62 per cent: a common fraud involves “extra virgin olive oil” that is lesser-quality olive oil.
Spices 86 per cent.
Grated hard cheese 68 per cent.
Fruit juices 90 per cent.
The CFIA said this year it conducted label verification sleuthing with the following results: New this year, the CFIA also conducted targeted label verifications in the following commodities. The percentage indicates compliant label verification results, noting that some label verification findings related to misrepresentation, while others did not:
- fish and seafood products 85 per cent (net quantity verification)
- olive oil 69 per cent (basic food label verification)
- expensive oils 50 per cent (basic food label verification)
- spices 86% (basic food label verification)
- fresh or frozen fruit and vegetables 100 per cent (organic claims).
The report said “the CFIA's actions prevented nearly 140,000 kg of misrepresented food from being sold in Canada.”
