SASKATOON – Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says the country’s food watchdog is planning to impose tougher rules to deal with the threat of E. coli in slaughterhouses.
He says the Canadian Food Inspection Agency will also require that meat plants producing mechanically tenderized beef cuts, such as steaks or roasts, label the products as tenderized and include cooking instructions for consumers.
These actions are specific to federally registered plants, but Health Canada also intends to propose broader mandatory labels to identify tenderized beef at retail outlets. This practice has been in place on a voluntary basis since last year.
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The inspection agency will soon begin a two-year review of the country’s food regulations to ensure they’re in line with the Safe Food for Canadians Act passed last year.
Ritz says the agency will consult consumers and industry as it works on improvements to food safety.
“Canada has a world-class food safety system and our government is committed to taking real steps to make it even stronger,” Ritz said.
The safe food legislation pulled four existing sets of food inspection regulations into one act to ensure consistent rules and inspection procedures.
It also cleared the way to help the inspection agency build a new system to trace products through the production chain and allow for faster removal of unsafe foods.
The legislation was passed after the authorities ordered major recalls of beef from an Alberta packing plant last September because of concerns about E. coli contamination.
That followed the deadly nationwide outbreak of listeriosis in the summer of 2008. The illness, which killed 23 Canadians and sickened hundreds more that summer, was linked to tainted deli meats from a Toronto packing plant.
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