British foods: not quite banned in Canada after all

Canadian Food Inspection Agency clarifies British food seizure

Last week, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, ordered a number of British food items from the shelves of a specialty store in Saskatoon Saskatchewan.

Prior to this month’s store visit by CFIA officials, the owner of Brit Foods in Saskatoon, had been advised in December that his imported food shipment had been detained by Canada Customs.

He was told the British items, such as Ovaltine, Bovril, Marmite, Penguin chocolate Bars, and others, did not meet Canadian regulations and could not be sold.

The news that these iconic food items were “banned” caused a furor in the UK media and elsewhere around the world. There was also a flurry of online activity as people expressed varying degrees of shock, outrage, and confusion over the apparent coming “ban” on these popular products, some of which have been produced for over 100 years.

The situation was not helped by the CFIA’s initial silence and failure to respond to reporter requests.

Now, the CFIA has responded saying the version of the products sent to the Saskatoon store- such as Marmite – were simply not meant for the Canadian market and as such did not meet Canadian regulations.  It also said meat products in the shipment weren’t properly documented and included UK beef which currently can’t be imported to Canada.

A spokesman for the inspection agency said on Saturday,that other versions of the products specifically for Canada are approved.

In the statement the agency said, “Irn-Bru and Marmite are not banned for sale in Canada. Compliant formulations of these products have been available on Canadian store shelves for more than a decade and will continue to be sold in stores across Canada,”

Across Canada, when afficianados of the products heard about what appeared to be a coming ban on such products they rushed to their specialty to stores to stock up on their favourite British snacks and foods.