A new national organic labeling system goes into effect June 30th, 2009.
This logo signifies a product contains 95 per cent organic content. It applies to both Canadian and imported organic products --including fruit, vegetables, dairy products, meat and processed food. All products seeking organic certification must now meet Canada's standards. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is responsible for the new regulations and testing for compliance.
"What the organic product regulation gives us is it gives us the authority to suspend or cancel the certification," says the CFIA's Michel Saumur.
The regulations are part of an equivalency arrangement with the U.S. which is supposed to allow our consumers more organic choices, and our producers more opportunities to sell in the US.
Until now the organic designation was decided province-by-province. B.C. and Quebec were the only two provinces to have mandatory regulations in place. With no national standard, two different brands of the same food product could potentially have had very different levels of organic ingredients.
Products which contain less than the 95 per cent organic ingredients do not qualify to use the organic logo but if they have over 70 per cent organic content they can say "made with organic ingredients" and indicate the percentage of its organic ingredients.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Chris Olsen
