Safe Food for Canadians Act - How will it impact me as a manufacturer?

Safe Foods for Canadians Act may become a regulation as early as the summer of 2017. This will mean changes for many of the current food manufacturers. This will be a simpler, stronger law that will apply to all food manufacturers and importers and will be CONSISTENT for all. It will align strongly with FSMA - the Food safety modernization act that is the new standard in the US.

How will it impact you?

You will be required to have three things:

1) Licence - You, as a food preparation or an importing company, will need to have a licence from the government. This will allow the CFIA to deal directly with all food companies and ensure that inspection of these companies is based on risk.

2) Preventive food safety controls - You will be required to have developed a preventive control program. This can be a HACCP program or something similar. It will need to outline all of the hazards associated with your ingredients and processing steps. Once all of these hazards are identified you will need to determine whether there are control points or critical control points and determine effective measures to adequately control all of these risks.

3) Traceability program - You will need a strong and effective traceability program to ensure that you can adequately trace backward and forwards and do so quickly. If a supplier of yours needs to recall their ingredient:  

Would you be able to trace it in all of the products that it went into and to which customers those products were sold to?

This is the type of traceability you will want to have and you will want to be able to do so quickly - within 4 hours is preferred.

SFCA will ensure that all manufacturers and importers are under the same consistent inspection regime. And that there will be tougher penalties for anyone who doesn't follow the new regulations or puts food safety at risk. 

FS & RD Consulting can assist you with the development of your preventive food safety and your traceability program. We can help you have everything in place to meet these new regulations. Check us out at http://www.fsrdconsulting.com and obtain a free quote today.