Insects prompt chicken soup recall

 

Chicken soup made by La Cie McCormick Canada in Montreal is on recall because of insects.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Tim Horton’s is one of the companies affected by the recall, plus other hotels, restaurants and institutions in Ontario and Alberta.

The product being recalled is Tim Horton Soup Base Chicken Noodle in the 3.56 kg package with “Best Before” dates MR1323, AL1723, AL1823, AL2123, AL2223, AL2323, AL2423, AL2523, AL2923 and AL3023 and an internal code TDL #10017643. The soup base has the UPC code 000 66200 02329 4.

CFIA suspends two licences

 

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has suspended two licences, effectively putting the companies out of business unless and until they comply with food safety standards.

One business is Fox Hill Cheese House and its owner Richard F. Rand of Nova Scotia.

The other is 11163337 Canada Inc. of Montreal. Pinchos Freund is the only company director listed and he operates Homemade Kosher Bakery Inc.

Pick family funds research chair

Martin and Denise Pick Family are giving $2 million to fund a research chair at Ontario Agriculture College, University of Guelph.

The research will focus on soil health and measures such as forage and cover crops.

The Picks are known for creating the Pickseed company.

There is also an anonymous donor to the research chair.

“We’ve been in the agriculture industry all of our lives and we’ve been fairly well rewarded by it, so giving back feels like the appropriate thing to do,” said Martin Pick. 

Eric Lyons, acting chair of the department of plant agriculture, said producing more food using less space is a critical challenge. 

“We need to think innovatively about what we do in farming and its impact on the environment, soil, water and carbon,” he said. “We can definitely improve our cropping systems to sequester more carbon, release less nitrogen into the atmosphere or through leaching into groundwater.”

Saputo closing an Australian plant

 

Saputo is closing one plant in Australia and downsizing two others in an effort to boost profits.

About 75 workers will lose their jobs.

The company said it expects these changes will increase profits by $10 million per year by 2025.

Saputo is a Canadian company with its head office in Montreal. It is one of the largest cheese makers in North America and is Canada’s largest dairy business.

Quarantine lifted around Sarsfield

 

 

The quarantine around an outbreak of highly-pathogenic avian influenza has been lifted from an are around Clarence-Rockford south-east of Ottawa.

There have been 37 outbreaks this year in Ontario.

Farmers are working too hard

Researchers are learning that farmers are working too hard and it’s affecting their mental health.

The Gateway Centre of Excellence in Rural Health learned during a meeting of about 30 people recently that they would like to hear more about challenges such as farm succession, farm safety, anything related to farm efficiency, stress management and achieving that balance between home and work.

Becky Higgs, who is leading the research, said many farmers are determined to get work done and because they live where they work, they tend to work too long. 

“What we realized when we were doing the research with SHED Talks (Sustaining Healthy Farms Through Empowerment and Dedication) was that no one truly knows the farm better than the farmers themselves, so it makes it difficult for some of them to explain what’s going on at the farm when these people aren’t there all the time,” she said.

Higgs says other major stressors are finances and trying to find the balance between work and home life.

There are plans to expand the project to Huron and Perth Counties.

Pickup truck prices moderating

Used pickup truck prices went crazy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic as new vehicles became scarce, but things are settling down now.

By mid-2021, prices for used pickups were 45 per cent higher than a year before.

And Jerome Powell, head of the central bank in the United States, cited it as one of the reasons pushing up the U.S. rate of inflation.

He said inflation would be transitory, and in the case of used pickup trucks, he was right.

Prices have recently returned to normal pre-pandemic annual increases.

The situation in Canada is harder to determine because Statistics Canada didn’t track prices for used cars and trucks until May.

The Globe and Mail reports that used vehicle prices in Canada were about five per cent higher this September than a year ago – much more moderate than the huge increases in mid-2021.