Canadians not confident in safety of imported food, poll finds

By Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News 
October 11, 2011 
The Vancouver Sun


OTTAWA — Imported foods have a branding problem in Canada, a new government-commissioned survey has found.

Only 10 per cent of Canadian farmers said they are "very confident" that imported food sold in Canada is safe, while 18 per cent of consumers said they are very confident. Overall, half of the producers (48 per cent) said they are not confident in the safety of food imports — split between those who are "slightly confident" and "not at all" confident. One-third of consumers say they don't have confidence in the safety of imports.

This is the first time Agriculture Canada's strategic issues tracking survey has asked about the safety perceptions of food imports sold in Canada, and the results reveal a significant gap in confidence between imports and foods produced in Canada.

Among consumers, 51 per cent said they are very confident in the safety of food produced in Canada, while 71 per cent of farmers said they're very confident.

Strong confidence among consumers is up 10 points since 2009, when 41 per cent said they were very confident. In 2007, when the tracking survey was carried out for the first time, 35 per cent of consumers said they were very confident in the safety of food produced in Canada.

At the same time, the percentage of people who look for a product's country of origin when food shopping is up, from 52 per cent in 2007 to 58 per cent in 2011.

The 2011 survey also asked about whether consumers check to see if a product is locally grown, meaning grown within 100 kilometres of where they live. Half (51 per cent) said they do check.

The 2011 tracking survey, completed by Environics in the first quarter of this year, was carried out in the wake of an internal audit of food import controls at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The audit, completed in July 2010, found that the safety of imported foods in Canada was at risk because of multiple "deficiencies" with the government's oversight system.

After the audit, which tracked import controls from April 2005 to March 2008 and analyzed some current management practices, CFIA proposed changes to improve import controls of the non-federally registered sector. Products in this sector include baked goods, eggs, snacks, confectionary, cheese, vegetables, fish, spreads and meats, and account for about 70 per cent of food sold in Canada.

Environics completed the 2011 tracking survey in the first quarter of this year.

The poll of 1,052 Canadians not involved in farming or ranching has a margin of error of three percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The survey of 2,000 producers, who hold or share primary responsibility for making decisions regarding their farm operations, has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points, 19 times in 20.

sschmidt@postmedia.com