The Globe and Mail reports that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is conducting a safety blitz following a scathing report on its handling of an outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes food poisonings linked to Silk milk-imitation products made at the Joriki plant at Pickering last year.
The inspector general’s report said the way the CFIA scheduled inspections was flawed because many facilities were skipped based on a computer algorithm the CFIA relied on.
The Globe and Mail was instrumental in bringing the CFIA failures at the Joriki facility to light. It lost its contract to make Silk for Danone, a global dairy company based in France.
In addition to the safety blitz, the CFIA will be requiring the approximately 8,000 facilities it licences to conduct more food-safety tests and to keep more food safety records.
It's all reminiscent of the 1970s when I reported about failures in CFIA meet inspection, the agency's vice-president said they had their head stuck in the sand until the news reports brought the deficiencies to the attention of the public and the CFIA leadership promised to reform. Never really did.
