Many Canadians are worried about food fraud, finds study

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HALIFAX, NS. (NEWS 1130) – A new study suggests more than half of Canadians, especially those with health conditions, are worried the foods they’re buying are not what labels claim.

In an online survey conducted by researchers at Dalhousie University, 63 per cent of respondents say they were concerned about food fraud — where a product is misrepresented in some way, for instance, by surreptitiously replacing a high-quality ingredient with a cheaper one.

“Anything that is liquid, spices can be subject to counterfeiting. Fish and seafood, that would be the number-one category right now. Anything that is processed in the meat counter, so sausages, we’ve seen many cases before in the past,” says Lead Researcher Sylvain Charlebois.

He adds people with food intolerances or allergies are more likely to be concerned about the issue. “The entire system is based upon trust essentially, whether it’s between the consumer and the retailer or even within the industry.”

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency gets around 40 complaints a year.

Charlebois calls food fraud, “the big elephant in the room,” adding people are aware of it but they just don’t know how to deal with it.

The survey was conducted for three weeks in January among nearly 1,100 adult respondents living in Canada for at least one year.

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