Food service labelling Flashcards
What is food labelling about?
Informing and protecting the public about the foods they buy
What is codex alimentarius?
International standrads established by WHO and FAO to protect the consumer and ensure fair practices in food trade
- Food safety and quality
- 188 member countries, canada signed in 1963
Why are the codex standard good for?
- Codex standards serve in many cases as a basis for national legislation
- Reference in World trade organization trade disputes
What is food labelling in canada governed by?
- Regulations defining the application and enforcement of the law
- Acts (broad laws)
What are the major association and the major Acts and Regulations related to food labelling?
Associations:
- Government of Canada
- CFIA- canadian food inspection agency
Acts and regulations:
- Food and drug act and regulations
- Canada agricultural products A&R
- Consumer packaging and labelling A&R
- Fish inspection A&R
- Meat inspection A&R
Which acts will soon be replace by what name of act and regulations?
- Canada Agricultural products
- Consumer packaging and labelling
- Fish inspection
- Meat inspection
Will soon be replaced by Safe food for Canadians act and regulations
What are the regulations defining the agricultural products act in Canada?
- Dairy products
- Egg
- Fresh F&V
- Honey
- Icewine
- Licensing and arbitration
- Livestock and poultry carcass grading
- Organic products
- Maple products
- Processed egg
- Processed products
What are 2 provincial organization that have their own acts and regulations about food labelling in Quebec?
- MAPAQ (regulations respecting food, regulations respecting bottled water)
- Office de la langue française (regulations respecting language of commerce and business)
What are mandatory label elements?
- Identity and principal place of business
- List of ingredients and allergens
- Nutrition facts table
- Product common name
- Net quantity
- Country of origin
- Durable life date and storage instructions
What are other mandatory elements for certain food products?
- Country of origin
- Grade name
- Apple/pear variety
- Articicial sweeteners added
- % m.f. and moisture in cheese
- % meat protein
- etc.
What are voluntary elements? on food labels
- Nutrient-content or health claims
- Other value-added claims (natural, organic, kosher etc.)
- Highlighing of ingredients and flavours (through words or image)
- Number of servings per container
What are regulations about the name of a product?
- Name should adequately reprensent the product
- Should consisit of the standardized name established by regulations ( chocolate, juice , extract…)
- Or in absence of standards, the name which the food is commonly known, when no standards have been prescribed
- Name should not be misleading
- Shown on principal display pannel in characters of at least 1,6mm in height
What are key elements requiring food standards?
- Source
- Composition
- Appearance
- Freshness
- Permissible additives
- Maximum bacterial content
What are requirements for the net quantity of food items?
- The net quantity should be within prescribed tolerances
- On the principal display panel
- In metric
- In bold characters and in type size related to the dimensions of the packaging
- Rounded to 3 figures
- Any final zero to the right f the decimal point is not required to be shown
What are net requirements of the durable life date?
- Required on products which durable life is 90 days or less
- Must be preceded by words “best before/meilleur avant”
- Must be shown in characters of at least 1.6mm in height
What are requirements for company name and address?
- Should be complete enough for delivery within a reasonable delay
- Must be shown in characters of at least 1.6mm in height
What are requirements of the list of ingredients and allergens?
Ingredients must be declared:
- In descending order of their proportion or as a percentage of the prepackaged product
- Using the proper nomenclature (standardize or common name)
- Components of ingredients must be shown in parentheses, immediately after ingredients pr in descending order of their proportion of the ingredient determined before components are combined to form the ingredients
What are new aspects of list of ingredients and allergens, and until when does the food industry has to comply?
- Back front upper and lower case
- Grouping of sugars-based ingredients
- Bullets or commas to separate ingredients
- Minimum type height requirements
- Title “ingredients and “contains” in bold
- Food colors by name
- White or neutral background
What are the priority allergens that must be declared when present in a food product?
- Milk
- Egg
- Peanuts and treenuts
- Fish
- Shellfish
- Crustaceans
- Sesmae
- Wheat
- Gluten source
- Soy
- Sulfites
- Mustard
True or false
it is acceptable to declare allergen by their group name?
False
- When present in a food, specific allergen sources must be named (ex: cod, clam, schrimp, almonds, barley)
What is probably one of the most important responsability of labelling specialists?
Allergens properly declared
Are there food recalls concerning allergen labelling? If yes, how often?
YEs, 2-4 food recalls regarding undeclared allergens
What are new things on nutrition facts labelling?
- Calories larger and stands out more with bold line below
- mg amount are shown
- New daily value footnote
- Serving size stands out more and is more similar on similar foods
- New % daily value for total sugars
- Updated list of minerals of public health concern
- New daily value footnote
Aller voir slide 37
What is another upcoming regulatory modification in front-of-package labelling?
- New labelling for foods high in nutrients of public health concern
What are some voluntary label elements? with examples
- Composition and quality claims (pure, vegan, no preservatives, gluten-free)
- Method of production (Natural, kosher, halal, homemade, raised without hormones, not a product of genetic engineering)
- Pictures, logos, trademarks (weight watchers, health check heart and stroke, aliments du quebec, **when a picture, of raspberries on jello, has to state that there are no real raspberries- Picture depicting artificial flavours, heart symbols)
- Nutrient content (no trans fats, good source of iron, low in sodium, excellent source of prots)
- Health claims (function claims, disease reduction claims, therapeutic claims, probiotic claims)
What is a claim?
Representations which state, suggest or imply that a food has particular characteristics relating to its origin, nutritional properties, nature, production, processing, composition or any other quality
What are 3 types of conditions when doing a nutrient content claim?
Conditions for
- Food
- Label or advertisement
- Statement or claim
What are 4 types of health claims?
- Function claims (nutrient function, food or food constituent function claims)
- Disease risk reduction claims
- Therapeutic claims
- Probiotic claims
What is an example of food or food constituent function claim? What category of claim is it?
Category: Health claim
- Green tea increases antioxidant capacity in blood
What are conditions for food or food consitutent function claims? What type and category of claim is it?
Type and category: Function claim=> in Health claim
- Acceptable wording
- Conditions for uses
What is a therapeutic claim? What category of claim is it?
HEalth claim
- Highlight the therapeutic effect of a food, food constituent or diet, including restoring, correcting, or modifying body fucntions
What are the 5 therapeutic claims authorized by health Canada?
- Replacement of saturated fats with unsaturated fats
- Psyllium fiber
- Plant sterols
- Oat fibre
- Barley fibre
Could you state that an apple is cholesterol free?
YEs, if you also clearly state that all apples are cholesterol free
True or false
Products sold in the province of quebec must have english and french labelling?
False
At least french
(except for organic, nutrient content, and diet related claims which must be bilingual)
What part of the labeling must be bilingual in quebec?
- Organic
- Nutrient content and diet-related claims
What is a key legal requirement regarding language in food labeling?
- Every inscription on a product must be drafted in French
- The french inscription ma be accompanied with a translation or tranlsations, but no inscirption in another language may be given greater prominence than that in French
What are government jobs related to food labeling?
- Food inspectors (Canadian food inspection agency, MAPAQ, city of mtl)
- Food labelling specialists
(Advisor service for inspectors, and training of inspectors) - Regulator
(reviewing the regulatory framework in other countries, writing regulations, consulting public and interested parties about new rules)
What are responsabilities of the food inspector?
- Asses compliance
- Enforcement of action
- Asses operator’s action plans
- Collect samples
- Seize and detain products, manage food recall plans
- Provide educational material
- Participate in continuing education
- Participate in department consultations
What are some non-governmental jobs?
Regulatory affairs manager for:
- Food manufacturer
- Food importer
- Retailers
Consultant for:
- Trade associations
- Consulting firms such as ACC label
What are responsabilities of affair manager in the food industry?
- Regulatory compliance
- Draft labels
- Work close connection with different departments
- Outsource certain tasks
- Participate in government consultations
What are responsabiliies of labelling consultant? (private consulting firm or food trade organization)
- Advise client about regulatory requirements and nutritional analysis methods
- BAckup recommendations with references from the regulations
- Participaate in all governmental consultations about food labelling to keep up to date
- Evaluate client projects and prepare quotes
What are some challenges in food labelling?
- Dispersion of information throughout the regulations
( referral to other sections of the regulations, ex: required by section b1. b4.b5 …) - Unreliable nutritional data
(Nutritional analysis=> lab analysis and database analysis) - Understanding the client (labelling vocabulary)
What are the 2 nutritional anaylsis method?
- Lab analysis (direct approach)=> chemical breakdown of food product to determine its nutritional composition)
- Database analysis (indirect approach) => series of calculations based on the nutritional content of a product based on the recipe and the nutritional data available in databases for each ingredients)
What are possible sources of error when doing laboratory analysis ?
- Inadequate sampling of products
- Erors in lab procedures
What is another source of error in nutritional analysis?
- Interpreting nutritional data of imported products
What are database nutritional analysis common sources of errors?
- Imcomplete or inaccurate nutritional data for some ingredients
- Inaccurate product formula
- Inaccurate recipe yield
- Poor estimation of nutrient losses due to processing
What is the % margin of error tolerated in food labelling, and what does it account for?
20%
- Natural variations of food due
- Normal margins of error inherent to the nutritional analysis method performed according to standardized methods
- Rounding of values in the Nutrition Facts table
What are some traps to avoid in food labelling?
- Being influenced by the client
- Overlooking foreign differences (flour ex.)
- Overlooking regional differences (trans fat in BC ex)
