“May contain traces” is too little warning: CFIA

There may be a crackdown on how packaged foods’ precautionary labels are worded, if food processors choose not to accurately reflect allergy risks in their warnings, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said yesterday.

In an advisory to manufacturers and importers, CFIA and Health Canada noted that their policy on these “precautionary statements” is under review. Such statements are now printed voluntarily and in keeping with Health Canada’s previous policy guidelines, drawn up in 1994.

However, CFIA noted, “since that time, the food industry has used a variety of statements that do not always accurately reflect the appropriate health risk for individuals with food allergies.”

The review was also needed because the use of precautionary statements has “substantially increased” since the mid-1990s, the agencies said.

Thus Health Canada is updating its policy to take away the option for terms such as “may contain traces of (allergen’s name here).”

The new policy, CFIA said, will limit the options for precautionary statements to two: “may contain (name here)” or “not suitable for consumption by persons with allergies to (name here).”

Also, CFIA noted, if suppliers have labelled a raw product with a precautionary statement, manufacturers and processors are advised to use the same statement on their finished products’ labels, unless it can be shown that the allergen in the finished product is unlikely to be a health risk.

CFIA and Health Canada now advise the food industry to “take a proactive approach” and change the labels on their pre-packaged foods to include one of its two precautionary statements listed above, during the course of 2007 and 2008.

While such labelling is voluntary, the agencies said enforcement actions would be taken when allergens aren’t clearly represented on pre-packaged foods and a potential health risk has been identified. Such actions can include seizure, detention and recall of products, or even prosecution, CFIA said.

As usual, the agencies, said, precautionary statements can’t be used as a substitute for good manufacturing processes or legal requirements. The statements can be used when allergens in the food are unavoidable despite all reasonable precautions.

But if an allergen is directly or indirectly added to a food, existing policy requires that it be declared in the list of ingredients on the label — not in a precautionary statement.