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NEW FOOD LABELLING RULES INCOMING

AMENDMENTS TO FOOD AND DRUG REGULATIONS TAKE EFFECT IN THE NEW YEAR

After nearly four years, amendments to the Food and Drug Regulations (“FDR”) labelling regime, previously enacted in July of 2022, are set to take effect on January 1, 2026.

While the changes are laudable from a public health perspective, parties selling regulated food products (“Regulated Parties”) need to ready themselves for compliance with these changes, and in this report, we provide a brief overview of the key changes.

Front-of-Package Nutrition Labelling (“FOP”)

Prepacked products will now require FOP labelling, and more specifically, a mandated nutrition symbol – with exact rules depending on the nature of the prepackaged product (whether it is a "main dish" or not – main dishes meaning a combination dish not requiring additional ingredients other than water and containing foods from at least two food categories), and nutrient daily value (“DV”) thresholds based on the table of daily values:

Regulated Parties must also be aware that FOP nutrition symbols must conform with the required formatting specifications.  There are also certain exemptions and prohibitions from FOP requirements.

Nutrient Content Claims (“NCC”) & Other Changes

Note that the table of nutrient content claimshas now been removedfrom the FDR and will now be incorporated by reference – the stated rationale being to allow for easier changes to NCCs. 

There are also a number of amendments to certain NCCs/health claims (i.e., sugar-related NCCs, etc.), and certain prohibitions against the use of NCCs required to have FOP nutrition symbols.  For example, the claim “unsweetened” is prohibited from being displayed on the principal display panel (“PDP”) of foods containing the “high in sugars” FOP nutrition symbol.

The FDR amendments have also repealed certain extra labelling requirements for foods containing aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame-potassium and neotame (collectively, “HIS”).  Moving forward, foods containing one of the HIS will no longer have to contain a quantitative declaration of the content of the HIS or have a statement on the PDP indicating the food contains an HIS.

Non-Compliance Issues

Enforcement of the FDR labelling regime is handled by the Canada Food Inspection Agency (“CFIA”). If inspection by the CFIA reveals non-compliance with these new labelling rules, it may result in a request for corrective action by Regulated Parties, detention of food products at the border, or worse!

Takeaways

Canadian food manufacturers and importers need to ensure that they are in compliance with these changes to Canada's food labelling regime.  Experienced Customs & Trade professionals can assist with day-to-day compliance, and the inevitable enforcement actions expected from the CFIA.

For help with the FDR labelling regime, please click here.

Download a PDF copy of this Blog here.