Consumer group advocates new approach to governing food product information

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

When it comes to food labelling, an organization representing Canadian consumers recommends legislators think beyond the label to establish product information requirements.

The Internet, for example, is one way food manufacturers can offer more information about their products in addition to what they put on product labels, says Ken Whitehurst, executive director of the Consumers Council of Canada.

“Everyone’s idea about what kind of information you give to a consumer at point of sale and how you approach that has been governed by the idea of fitting it on a product label,” he says. “No one’s really broadly addressed the opportunity to serve consumers with information about food products” using the Internet, which he described as an open, limitless communications environment.

The rules and standards governing food information have focused on the notion that there’s only so much information that could fit or be economically provided on a label. “There was kind of a constraint to what could be provided,” he says.

But consumers’ expectations about the information they want on the products they’re buying are broadening quite a lot. “Our sense is the old rules” of that there’s only a limited amount of information companies can provide don’t apply any more, Whitehurst notes.

The council has recently released a report on food labelling that contains eight recommendations including one suggesting regulations governing the geographic origin of food claims be made thorough enough to enable consumers to determine the place of origin for the majority of the food ingredients in the product.

One of the reasons the council did the report is in response to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s work on a national review on food labelling policies, he says.

The Food Information Labelling and Advertising Panel Final report was done in collaboration with five other Canadian consumer-focused groups: Anaphylaxis Canada, Heart and Stroke Foundation, My Sustainable Canada, Option Consommateurs, Union des Consommateurs. The panel has tried to capture a global perspective on food information labelling and advertising in its report.

The most important thing the council wanted to do with the report is to outline the big matters in food information labelling and advertising, Whitehurst says. A second priority was to note the food information system is big, complex and changing rapidly.

The food information system is changing because the food supply has become globalized, he notes.

The council works with business and government for an improved marketplace in Canada. BF