The CFIA has announced its intention to modernize food compositional standards. CAAR is seeking member feedback.

CIFA believes this will provide more opportunities for industry to respond to consumer preferences by marketing innovative products.

It is looking for feedback on the principles and the processes that will be followed to modernize these standards.

Health Canada and CFIA are proposing to modernize the Food and Drug Regulations (FDR) framework by using incorporation by reference for food compositional standards.

This would allow CFIA to maintain and update the standards in a transparent, timely and efficient manner. It is expected that the proposed regulatory amendments would be pre-published in Canada Gazette, Part I, in fall 2023.

After these legislative amendments are complete, CFIA intends to review and modernize the food standards that are incorporated by reference into the FDR and the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations. CFIA has developed a discussion paper “A strategy for modernizing food compositional standards”.

The discussion paper was posted on June 23, 2023, and will be open until September 22, 2023.

According to the CFIA website, it is seeking industry input on how to modernize the food compositional standards, including how CFIA would use the following approaches:

• screen modification requests for completeness based on clear criteria to expedite processing
• prioritize accepted requests that address industry issues
• clearly communicate CFIA's decisions regarding next steps for requestors
• consolidate requests based on commodity groups or sub-groups to maximize efficiency during proposal development and engagement

Once the comment period ends, CFIA will analyse the feedback and publish a report summarizing what we heard. Your feedback and responses, combined with those of others, will provide guidance and support for identifying approaches to modernize the food compositional standards.

If you have any questions or would like to raise specific retail concerns, please reach out to Mitch Rezansoff, Executive Director, at 204-989-9303.