10% of your cart filled with adulterated products, according to “J. E.”

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Thursday, 25 January 2018 19:29

UPDATE
Thursday, 25 January 2018 19:34

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Of the products that are adulterated, diluted or counterfeit goods fill the shelves of the grocery store. 10% of your basket would be filled. The show “J. E.” and focused on the scourge of food fraud.

What are the risk foods? The canadian authorities are prepared to combat this crime? Several experts believe that Canada should have a police power. Here are the highlights of the story.

The honey is adulterated

The team of “J. E.” has mandated the lab Environex to analyze several foods, including six pots of honey. Extensive analyses, including nuclear magnetic resonance, are needed to determine the fraudulent products. Result: three honeys in six had serious errors of labelling.

Two bottles of Manuka honey, a luxury product with therapeutic properties, do not contain in any way what they pretend to. “Our tests have proved beyond any doubt that what is on the label, this is not the Manuka honey”, said Marc Hamilton, president of the Group Environex.

We have detected another fraud, that by adding sugar syrup. Presented as the “pure honey”, a bottle imported from Germany and sold in our supermarkets contains large quantities. “Industrialists are saying that the honey is expensive per kilo, so that there is a way to dilute it, to do more, and keep the same price”, explains Mr. Hamilton.

Maple syrup diluted

“J. E.” has learned that maple syrup in quebec has recently been seized by u.s. customs. Sources at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States have confirmed that the sugar syrup has been detected in barrels from Canada.

These u.s. sources have not obtained permission to give an interview. Canadian companies have never been indicted by the courts.

“Quebec has a lot of food and value-added of the local products which could be a day targeted by fraud phenomena food. It would help to protect us and to protect our industry,” says Samuel Godefroy, professor of food safety at the University of Laval.

The false pure olive oil

According to experts consulted by “J. E.”, you would find olive oil altered in quantity phenomenal on the canadian market. The company Simon & Nolan Laval was convicted in November last.

In case, bottles of olive oil and grapeseed oil were altered. On their label, it appears, however, pure. The Court of Quebec has ordered the destruction of the products have been tampered with. Simon & Nolan was fined$20,000.

5 companies sentenced in 2017 by the CFIA

Mariner Neptune Fish & Seafood

The company was fined$ 25,000 for selling fake fish canada, which was in fact imported from Europe.

Creation Food Company

The company is based in Ontario, has sold cheeses supposedly certified “kosher” so that no certification had been granted.

Easter Meat

The company has borne the brunt of the fine, the most important last year and had to shell out$ 200,000 for beef labeled “Angus” was not.

Thomas Canning

Tomatoes presented as organic that were not have cost 40 000$ in this Ontario business.

Simon & Nolan

The company Simon & Nolan Laval was sentenced to pay 20 000$ for bottles of olive oil and seed oil, because supposedly pure, and which were not.

A font of power

The United Kingdom was the first country to have a squad of police dedicated to the fight against food fraud. The director of the Food Crime Unit, Andy Morling, has all the powers necessary to flush out the scammers: surveillance, wiretaps, search warrants, etc

“It is an effective method, because we can more easily prove the criminal intent behind the fraud,” says Morling. Several experts believe that Canada should take inspiration from this structure to add punch to its food inspection system.

“You can’t bring a business to a judge, simply because the analysis is not good. To demonstrate the criminal intent, it requires the investigation of specialized services, where the relevance of investigative services,” says Eric Marine, the coordinator of the Food Fraud Network to the european Commission.

For its part, the canadian food inspection agency (CFIA) has no concrete plan to implement such a unit of inquiry. “Is it that we need to make this connection more tight with the side criminal, this is what we look at,” says Aline Dimitri, director of the science of safety to the CFIA.