Fancy that: Canada’s grocers are finally paying fines over misleading labels

A supermarket in suburban Toronto is one of the latest companies to pay a penalty for passing something off as Canadian that actually came from another country.

Hawk-eyed shoppers have been scrutinizing food labels with much more intensity since relations between the United States and Canada soured last year. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and relentless jibes about the 51st state, etc., have had a retail impact from coast to coast to coast, and it’s fair to think elbows are up with shoppers pushing their carts around the supermarket floor.

But at a Fortinos supermarket in Etobicoke — it’s around the corner from the Woodbine race track and a short drive from Pearson International Airport — the product that got nailed was not American. It was French.

The $10,000 penalty was one of a series of fines announced Thursday in a statement from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Fortinos is a premium brand that Loblaw operates in southern Ontario.

From an article this morning from Sophia Harris on CBC:

The CFIA says the Fortinos, located on Queens Plate Drive in Toronto, displayed Président-brand Rondelé specialty cheese spread with an 11-point maple leaf symbol on the shelf tag. However, the cheese is made in France.

That may come as a bit of a surprise for shoppers avoiding American produce and goods, as that’s where much consumer focus has been. (Earlier this winter, another Loblaw-owned store got fined for selling American broccoli slaw as Canadian.)

The earlier fine was also $10,000, the largest handed out thus far. Thursday’s statement added up to $37,000.

Those fines are not that huge, but at least they are something, and they speak to an issue that Harris has been reporting for some time: up until last fall, CFIA was not issuing fines at all.

From Harris’s story today:

“Grocery retailers have had sufficient time to ensure correct signage,” the agency stated. It’s now moving to “using appropriate enforcement actions where warranted.”

The issue of what is and is not a Canadian food or product is more complicated than a lot consumers think. CFIA defines the terms on this page.

Here are some good things to remember:

Canada Fancy means nothing about the country of origin. Ditto for Canada No. 1, Canada Grade A, etc. This simply means that the quality of the food meets a standard.

The maple leaf is, in the end, just a logo. Many products feature a maple leaf, but does not tell you what you really want to know. There may be some Canadian ingredients or labour or ownership, or there may not.

The phrase to look for is plain and simple. “Product of Canada” is what you want to see. It “means the processing and labour are Canadian and a significant amount of the ingredients are Canadian,” CFIA says. Straight-forward, nothing fancy, very Canadian, no?

Those are the rules, and they speak to what companies can legally do while suggesting something may be more Canadian than you might think.

The fines are getting dished out because the labels have not been truthful, or tried to mislead consumers.

Things can get a little confusing on the supermarket floor. I have on numerous occasions heard from friends or seen social media posts that feature a card or placard near food that indicates one thing (usually that a product is Canadian) while the packaging label on the actual product says something else.

It does still pay to keep a sharp eye — and, if you wish, to report something when there’s misrepresentation.