CIFA believes this will provide more opportunities for the 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 propose modernizing 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 transparently, promptly, and efficiently. The proposed regulatory amendments are expected to be pre-published in Canada Gazette, Part I, in fall 2023.
After these legislative amendments are complete, the CFIA intends to review and modernize the food standards incorporated by reference into the FDR and the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations. To this end, the CFIA has developed a discussion paper titled “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
- communicate CFIA’s decisions regarding the 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 analyze the feedback and publish a report summarizing our findings. Your feedback and responses and those of others will provide guidance and support for identifying approaches to modernizing food compositional standards.
If you have any questions or want to raise specific retail concerns, please contact Mitch Rezansoff, Executive Director, at 204-989-9303.
