Canadian National Exhibition officially opens

TORONTO – Mayor Rob Ford helped open the 136th annual Canadian National Exhibition Friday which begins today and runs through to Labour Day.

This year’s opening ceremonies commemorated the 100th Anniversary of the First World War with a procession planned that will include war re-enactors.

Among the new over-the-top food offerings at this year’s fair will be butter coffee, liquid nitrogen sorbets, and chocolate fried chicken.

But the CNE will be under much more scrutiny this summer following last year’s food poisoning outbreak.

In addition to 20 extra health inspectors visiting each food booth at least twice, vendors have been required to submit detailed lists of food ingredients as well to keep an eye on freshness, cleanliness and food storage conditions.

The new measures come after Toronto Public Health received 223 reports from visitors to the fair who had experienced gastrointestinal symptoms after eating the cronut burger at the CNE between Aug. 16 and 20, 2013.

The health agency determined the contamination came from the maple bacon jam topping on the novelty burgers sold by Epic Burgers and Waffles.

It was later found that the contaminated jam came from the Toronto-based supplier, Le Dolci.

WATCH: Will the weekend weather cooperate for your visit to the CNE?