Consultation Summary of the Permissible Claims on Feed Labels Proposal – Supplementary CFIA Response

March 2017

Feedback on Proposed Categories and Claims

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has received additional feedback about feed label claims since posting the Consultation Summary - Respondent Comments and CFIA Responses. This feedback concerns the following claims in the June 2016 proposal:

• "Manufactured in a facility that does not handle antibiotics or accept ingredients manufactured with antibiotics" and
• "Manufactured in a facility that does not use any animal products"

Stakeholders were concerned these conditions would not align with, nor support current industry practices that enable the use of claims on food products under "raised without the use of" livestock production systems.

As a result and given the ongoing food labelling modernization consultation (see below), the CFIA will, in the short term, remove these claims from the proposed list of permissible claims. The CFIA will continue to work with the feed industry, livestock producer groups and food processors to develop new permissible claims and will further consult on them.

Background

Currently, feed manufacturers wishing to include a claim on their livestock feed labels must register the product and must provide proof to support the claim. This includes claims about being "antibiotic free" or "for use in a raised without antibiotics program".

It was proposed that a list of permissible claims be developed so that certain ingredients and mixed feeds could be labelled without needing a pre-market assessment and approval by the CFIA.

Feeds labelled with claims from this list would not need to be registered to use the claim. Registration would still be required for claims not on the list.

The proposed list of permissible claims includes claims that are already in use and easy to define and prove and seeks to simplify the labelling process.

The proposal is in line with the current food labelling policies. CFIA recently launched Phase III of its consultation with stakeholders on food labelling modernization. In the Phase III Discussion Paper and Questionnaire, the section "New Approach for Truthful and Not Misleading Food Labelling" the CFIA is seeking stakeholder feedback on the following:

• The CFIA is proposing a realignment of roles and responsibilities that reflect the legal and ethical responsibility of industry to ensure that claims are truthful and not misleading, the important role of consumers to seek information and express their own views on claims, and the role of government to adopt risk-based enforcement of rules related to food safety and fraud.

This consultation closed on March 14, 2017. The outcomes of this consultation may affect future "method of production" claims on product labels.