Produce Now

February 1, 2008

QUICK LINKS

Launch of CPMA On-line Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Labelling Tool

CFIA Provides Updates to their Website Regarding Nutrition Labelling

New Food and Consumer Safety Action Plan

Produce Traceability Initiative – Open Dialogue For Industry

Elimination of First Service Option

Comments Requested – Import Requirements for Temperate Fruits

On February 8th, 2008, CPMA will launch the CPMA On-line Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Labelling Tool. This tool is an interactive, easy-to-use service and forms part of the label review service which is offered free of charge for members only.

The development of a label for fresh fruits and vegetables can be a time consuming process. It becomes increasingly complex when combined with the many tools, techniques, varieties and increasing prevalence of value-added and ready to eat products that exist in today’s marketplace. The CPMA On-line Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Labelling Tool is designed to assist members, when designing labels, to understand and apply various federal acts and regulations that govern the sale and marketing of fresh products destined for sale in the Canadian marketplace.

CPMA members can enter the tool many times and work on different labels for different products. The Tool also provides members with the ability to save the label in their personal file for future reference and use, enabling the user to stop the process at any time and return at a later date, or to revisit their labels in the future.

Participating in the CPMA On-Line Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Labelling Tool will provide you with assistance to better determine what type of label a product requires, and what information is needed. The tool will also help increase the ability of the fresh produce industry to market product more effectively by promoting compliance with Canadian labelling requirements. It is anticipated that this On-line Labelling Tool will provide an increased level of labelling flexibility with the added benefit of increasing consumer awareness of the health and nutritional benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables in their daily diets.

The CPMA On-line Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Labelling Tool can be accessed from the CPMA main web page at www.cpma.ca or by entering the following link label.cpma.ca.

For further information please contact Sally Blackman at sblackman@cpma.ca

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has provided CPMA with an update concerning the ending of the nutrition labelling transition period on December 12th, 2007. All prepackaged food products must now comply with nutrition labelling, nutrient content claims and diet-related health claim requirements which were introduced by Health Canada in its published amendments to the Food and Drug Regulations on January 1, 2003.

Please click on the following link for further important information found in the above mentioned email, including:

recent CFIA updates to the 2003 Guide to Food Labelling and Advertising,
the release of an INFORMATION LETTER on Carbohydrate claims on foods sold in Canada, and
an INFORMATION BULLETIN for Restaurants and Foodservice Establishments.

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On Thursday, January 24th, CPMA attended the initial consultation on the proposed Food and Consumer Safety Action Plan. The Action Plan proposes a series of initiatives to modernize and strengthen Canada’s safety system for food, health and consumer products and to better support the collective responsibilities that government, industry and consumers have for product safety. These initiatives focus on:

Preventing problems in the first place - Government would provide better product information to consumers and guidance to industries on building safety throughout their supply chains. This would encourage a renewed focus on prevention.
Targeting the highest or unknown risks – Government would be able to require companies that produce and/or supply consumer and health products to conduct safety tests and provide the results. That information would allow a closer watch on products where the risks are not yet fully understood or that pose the greatest potential hazard to the public.
Rapid Response – New legislation would allow the Government to take faster action than ever before to protect the public when a problem occurs. This includes the power to pull unsafe consumer and health products from store shelves and enhanced capacity to oversee food product recalls.

The Action Plan will also involve legislative amendments to the Food and Drugs Act, which are planned to be tabled shortly. The Discussion paper, available at: http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/pr-rp/plan_e.html contains the majority of what was covered in the Consultation session. Some points of interest include:

Proposed licensing of importers
Positive message that the government seeks to build on the existing and developing industry based food safety programs (on-farm, etc).
This was re-enforced with repeated references to "HACCP-based" programs, to industry/government collaboration, etc. Fines and penalties associated with tampering of food. CPMA will be preparing and submitting comments on the Action Plan which will be available to members on the CPMA website.

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Produce Traceability Initiative – Open Dialogue for Industry As the Produce Traceability Initiative sponsored by PMA, CPMA and UFPA evolves, all associations will strive to ensure an inclusive approach to the initiative. To meet requests for an opportunity to provide input from those not on the Steering Committee, the three associations will post updates from the meetings on their respective websites with the opportunity for all members to give input. As an industry-led effort to enhance traceability throughout the supply chain, the initiative is focused on external traceability (i.e. between trading partners) based on supply chain standards.

If members would like to give input on the effort, please review the meeting notes here and send any comments to Jane Proctor at jproctor@cpma.ca.

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This message is sent on behalf of Release Programs, Commercial Policy Division, Admissibility Branch.

Release Programs would like to remind brokers that the FIRST service option will be eliminated as of January 31, 2008. Questions regarding this information can be directed to release-mainlevee@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca.

The CBSA is eliminating paper for release purposes to help border services officers to move away from data capture to an environment that focuses on safety, security and facilitation of trade. Further, the CBSA's goal is to move the commercial program forward and ensure clients and stakeholders are better positioned for the third phase of the Advance Commercial Information (ACI) program known as eManifest.

There are exceptions to this move towards Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), which include:

Goods are subject to the requirements of another government department or agency and there is no EDI link between the CBSA and the other government department or agency:
Paper must be used in situations where another government department or agency does not have an EDI link with the CBSA. The CBSA is currently working with OGDs and agencies to address the issue of paper permits and certificates.
The invoice for the release transaction contains more than 999 invoice lines: Currently, the Accelerated Commercial Release Operations Support System (ACROSS) does not permit release requests with more than 999 invoice lines. If your invoice has over 999 lines, we recommend that you note this on the release package in order to avoid any unnecessary rejections from a border services officer.
There is more than one warehouse sub-location code per release transaction: Because only one Release Notification System (RNS) message can be generated for one transaction, a broker can only transmit one warehouse sub-location code per EDI release on minimum documentation (RMD). Therefore, the electronic options cannot be used if, for example, an importer has an invoice for one shipment that has been transported in more than one load and is located in more than one warehouse.
The release transaction is covered by multiple highway cargo control numbers at the border: Currently, ACROSS does not permit release requests with more than one cargo control number (CCN) under the PARS option. Where multiple CCNs are involved, the RMD option must be used. The EDI RMD option is not permitted at highway border points; therefore, the paper RMD option must be used.
The CBSA has issued a paper Y50 form, Reject Control Document, to the importer/broker for courier/low-value shipments (LVS): The CBSA matches the paper Y50 attached to the release package to the Y50 in the CBSA control file. The system remains paper-based.
Goods are moved into a bonded warehouse using the RMD option (grey wrapper): The actual authorization by the CBSA to move goods into a bonded warehouse location remains paper-based.
Goods are to be released from a Queen's warehouse: The CBSA requires a paper copy of Form E44, Customs Notice – Unclaimed Goods, to accompany the release request from a Queen's warehouse. This process remains paper-based.
There is a CBSA, importer and/or broker system outage: When a system outage occurs, clients must revert to a paper-based system. The CBSA will determine, on a case-by-case basis, under what circumstances and for how long paper copies will be accepted from a client who is experiencing a system outage.
Multiple invoice line entries: A degree of latitude will be accepted with respect to multiple invoice lines. If invoices are extensive and time frames are inflexible, clients may submit paper release requests.
Other: This exception may be used by clients if they are currently still in a testing phase for EDI capability or if their EDI system is down.

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The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is requesting comment from industry concerning Plant Health Directive D-95-08 – General Import Requirements for Fresh Temperate Fruits from the World. D-95-08 outlines general import requirements for fresh temperate fruits which are currently approved for import into Canada. It does not replace other prime directives, such as D-07-03 – Light Brown Apple Moth. CFIA is seeking input on the format of the Directive, in particular the usefulness of the tables in Appendix 1. These tables provide a comparative and analytical summary of the Plant Health import requirements for temperate fresh fruit approved for entry into Canada. The tables enable industry to search by the scientific or common name of a fresh temperate fruit, locate the origin and destination, and based on those facts, provides a summary of if there is a pest, trial period, phytosanitary certificate and import conditions associated with that product.

D-95-08 is available here.

Please submit comments by February 15th directly to:

Marie-Pierre Mignault, Horticulture Program Specialist
Tel: (613) 221-3829
Fax: (613) 228-6603
mignaultmp@inspection.gc.ca
Or
Elizabeth Powles, Horticulture Specialist
Tel: (613) 221-4638
powlese@inspection.gc.ca

Trial periods for Asian and Ya pears

The CFIA has informed CPMA that the trial periods for Asian and Ya pears from Hebei and Asian pears from Shandong are currently under review. These trial periods were supposed to end on January 18, but considering some recent non-compliances, more discussions are needed with China in order to determine if the trial periods will end or be extended. Until the review is completed, the same import requirements still apply. So, for Asian and Ya pears from Hebei and Asian pears from Shandong, an import permit is still required, in addition to the phytosanitary certificate. The import requirements for the other pears covered under D-94-32 remains the same, only a phytosanitary certificate is required.

Plant Health Protection Directives Update

Directive D-94-32 "Interim Policy for Plant Protection Import Requirements for Fresh Pears from the People's Republic of China" has been revised and is available on the web at http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/plaveg/protect/dir/d-94-32e.shtml. The trial periods for Ya pears from Hebei and Asian pears from Shandong and Hebei are currently under revision. Until this revision is completed, the import requirements will remain the same.

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