People in the organic food industry are defending current regulations after a Burnaby bakery was exposed for putting “organic” labels on bread that didn’t meet the criteria between 2006 and 2009.
“This took place in 2006, that was 3 years before we had an organic regulation in Canada. It’s exactly why the sector went to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ask for a regulation to encourage and require compliance and consumer trust,” said Matthew Holmes of the Canadian Organic Trade Association to Jill Krop on Unfiltered.
“Today, it’s not that damaging. I don’t see that happening today…The organic sector built a 3rd party approval system, built over 30 years with our standards, our inspectors, and our certifiers.”
Dung Nguyen, the owner of Meditteranean Bakery on Byrne Road in South Burnaby, admitted to investigators that he knowingly used non-organic flour for his bread. Ultimately, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency decided against charges.
Arjan Stephens from Nature’s Path, which produces organic breakfast cereals, says the cost of producing organic food is still high, but the benefits are worth it.
“We’re paying double or triple for commodities like nuts, or oats or wheat, but we’re only passing on 10-15% premium, but that’s because we believe it should be available for everyone,” he said. “It decreases pesticides and herbicides in food.”
However, Holmes warns consumers that food may never be truly 100% organic, despite was the label says.
“About 45% of organic foods have had trace amounts of pesticides. We looked at the data…these are not substances applied by a farmer,” says Holmes.
“This is from environmental contamination. When you’re finding pesticides in the arctic ice, in polar bear kidneys, these are from the environmental impact of certain practices.”
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