‘Product of Canada’ Label Disappearing From Processed Foods

(Christina Spencer — Ottawa Sun)

The way Mark Loney sees it, there can’t be many food products more patriotic than a jam marketed under the brand name CANADA’S.

CANADA’S Pure Saskatoon Jam is crammed with juicy Saskatoon berries, processed and packaged by a Saskatchewan company, then sold through Loney’s Cloverleaf Grocery in northwestern Ontario.

Yet when federal rules on food-labelling were updated in late 2008, “we had to take ‘Product of Canada’ off all our stuff,” he says. The reason: small amounts of sugar and citric acid in the jam weren’t produced in Canada.

Loney’s experience isn’t unusual. Food producers of all sizes have felt the pinch of federal regulations that say a food can only be labelled “Product of Canada” if its contents are 98% Canadian-sourced and processed here. Read more…