Consider stepping up and being part of the solution. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has created a survey for consumers and industry about proposed changes in direction to the food labelling system in Canada. If you’re Canadian, and you have an interest in the direction we take in our food labelling, then please take the time to fill in this survey.

Unfortunately the survey is clunky and long, and I know it’s not easy to find time to fill in surveys like this. In fact the instructions say it will take about 45 minutes to fill in. I didn’t keep track of how long it took me, so I can’t confirm or refute that estimate, but it isn’t short. The upside is that you can save at the end of each section, so you don’t have to finish all at once. The other downside is that some of the questions are oddly worded. In fact they remind me of project meetings from back in my consulting days. My guess is the survey was designed in-house. Oh well. The upside is that there is a lot of room for comments, so if you have ideas do share them. Hopefully someone will be reading.

Also keep in mind that this is a survey for industry and consumers. My bet is that there will be no shortage of responses from industry. This means that if we the consumers don’t take the time to fill it in, the direction of our food labelling system will be (more?) skewed in favour of industry.

What if only industry representatives answered the following question (from the survey):

“Are you in favour of a model in which industry takes a more active role in the development and maintenance of policies on consumer values claims?”

This is my answer:

At the end of the day, industry is responsible to its shareholders, not to the public. By definition that means they have goals that are related to profit over health. They should of course be a stakeholder along with the Government, nutrition and health practitioners, and consumers. But the size of their role should be strongly scrutinized.

I have a friend who is in the frozen foods business, and he once told me that one of their key performance indicators was oil uptake. They try to adjust recipes to increase the relative quantity of oil because oil is their cheapest ingredient. My guess is that all manufacturers have their own version of that KPI, and it is very clear that that does not align with either the Government, health care, or consumer goals for food. This is why industry should not have a bigger stake.

Want to make sure interested Canadians have as much of a say as interested industry?

Here’s the link to the survey again: Canada Food Labelling Survey. Please fill it in if you have an interest in the future of the Canadian food labelling system. The deadline is June 30th, 2015. If you have an extra interest in food labelling, there is an email address for the initiative at the bottom of the first page of the survey.

Elsbeth Vaino, B.Sc., CSCS, is a personal trainer in Ottawa who counts on effective labelling to help make healthy choices.

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