Posts tagged Food Recalls

Food safety: the forgotten issue?

By David McKie, CBC.ca In the 2008 election campaign, federal party leaders vowed to make the country’s food safer. [More...]

Food imports safe, say feds

By Laura Payton, Toronto Sun The man in charge of making sure Canada’s food is safe says the system is effective, with audits showing almost perfect compliance for food imports.  [More...]

Paperwork delays listeriosis lawsuit settlement

Joanna Smith, The Toronto Star It has been nearly two years since Maple Leaf Foods agreed to compensate victims of a deadly nationwide outbreak of listeriosis linked to its deli meats, but not a single cheque has been signed.  [More...]

Critics bite into food safety

By Laura Payton, Toronto Sun It’s hard to know whether the food you’re buying at the grocery store is safe, say critics of Canada’s food inspection system.  [More...]

CFIA deflects food safety criticisms

By Barry Wilson, The Western Producer Senior government officials responsible for food safety and inspection have a message: the system has never been better.  [More...]

Audit finds sanitation problems at some Canadian meat, poultry plants

Allison Jones and Steve Rennie The Canadian Press Canadian Food Inspection Agency documents often painted an inaccurate picture of the conditions at some of Canada’s meat and poultry plants where sanitation problems persisted, an American audit has found.  [More...]

Food safety watchdog still unclear on numbers

By Joanna Smith, The Toronto Star The federal food safety watchdog is still unable to say how many full-time inspectors work in ready-to-eat meat plants more than two years after a deadly nationwide outbreak of listeriosis traced to tainted deli meats.  [More...]

Feds say food system safe, inspectors beg to differ

By Laura Payton, QMi Agency Government experts say Canada’s food system is one of the safest in the world, but the union representing food agency inspectors says that’s not true.  [More...]

Canada still lacking inspectors at meat plants: CFIA

By Sarah Schmidt, PostMedia News The federal government doesn’t have enough inspectors at plants that make ready-to-eat meat to properly police the high-risk operations — and the situation won’t be rectified until next spring, according to internal staffing projections released to Postmedia News.  [More...]

Listeria detected in 18% of B.C. fish products

CBC News Potentially toxic Listeria bacteria has been found in 18 per cent of ready-to-eat fish products tested in B.C, according to an unreleased study by the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.  [More...]

Just what are we putting in our mouths? Food inspection agency should be thinking of consumers first

By Paula Simons, EdmontonJournal.com Perhaps you’re sitting in your kitchen, munching your 100-percent whole wheat toast, feeling virtuous about your fibre intake.  [More...]

Meat packing plant caught fudging ‘best before’ dates

By Joanna Smith, The Toronto Star A Toronto meat packing plant was caught fudging the “best before” dates on packages of ham about a month before it had to recall peppercorn salami when samples tested positive for potentially deadly bacteria.  [More...]

Deli meat OK for Canadians but off-limits to Americans

By Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service The Canadian Food Inspection Agency cut off access to American markets for the Toronto plant at the centre of an ongoing listeriosis investigation connected to tainted deli meats while allowing the company to continue to produce food for Canadians, Canwest News Service has learned.  [More...]

Walkom: Tainted meat and red tape

By Thomas Walkom, Toronto Star In theory, everyone likes getting rid of red tape. When federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced earlier this month that the Conservative government would set up a commission to do just that, many Canadians cheered.  [More...]

Minister defends food inspection system

By Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz defended Canada’s food-safety system yesterday after internal records surfaced showing the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is scrambling to maintain an increased presence at meat processing plants to adhere to American food-safety standards.  [More...]

U.S. had to force Canada to beef up meat inspections: union

The Canadian Press The union representing the country’s food inspectors says Canada increased its meat-plant inspection schedule only after complaints from the United States.  [More...]

Questions raised about gap in food inspection standards

By Gloria Galloway, Globe and Mail As investigators probe an unusual number of listeriosis cases in Ontario this year alongside a new tainted-meat recall, food inspectors have raised fresh questions about gaps between Canadian and U.S. food safety regimes.  [More...]

U.S. regulations forcing more meat inspections in Canada

By Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is scrambling to maintain an increased presence at dozens of large meat-processing plants after auditors from the United States Department of Agriculture found inspections were too infrequent to meet U.S. food-safety standards, newly released internal records show.  [More...]

Another listeria scare at a Toronto meat processing plant

HVP recall poses safety questions

By Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service It sounds more like a chemical than a food ingredient and until this week most consumers had probably never heard of hydrolyzed vegetable protein – let alone realized the additive is found in thousands of processed foods.  [More...]

Listeriosis cases linked to deli meat

By Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service Ontario’s chief medical officer confirmed Friday a genetic match between listeriosis cases and contaminated deli meat produced at a federally regulated meat plant — the first match since Canada was rocked in the summer of 2008 with a deadly outbreak.  [More...]

Listeria spike triggers hospitalizations

By Robert Cribb, The Toronto Star Two Ontarians were hospitalized — and another two deaths are being investigated — in relation to a listeria outbreak traced to a Toronto deli meat manufacturer.  [More...]

Canada expands recall of salmonella-tainted products

Canwest News Service More items were added Saturday morning to a growing recall list of products that could be contaminated with salmonella after a popular flavour enhancer was found to be tainted with the bacteria last month.  [More...]

Food recalls likely to come slowly

By Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service It could take months for some food companies to figure out whether a popular flavouring ingredient contaminated with salmonella found its way into their products, industry experts say.  [More...]

Brace for massive food recall: officials

By Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service Canadian consumers can likely expect an avalanche of food recalls after an ingredient used in thousands of processed foods was found to be contaminated with salmonella, government investigators said Friday.  [More...]