Exploding watermelons? Canadians say 'no thanks' to Chinese food imports
"I thought, 'Wait a minute. I'm not sure I can verify the contents of this can,'" the Hamilton resident says.
She promptly returned it to the shelf and bought a carton of locally produced cream to substitute in her recipe instead.
Like a growing number of Canadians, Ms. Palmerston has become much more vigilant lately about where her food comes from. And the relentless stream of food horror stories out of China, from tainted milk to exploding watermelons, has strengthened her resolve to avoid food imported from that country.
So far, Chinese consumers have been the ones facing the brunt of China's food scares and poisonings, but some Canadians are worried about the risk of unsafe products making their way into the food supply here. In the past month, Chinese inspectors have reportedly seized tons of contaminated milk, pork treated with steroids that sickened hundreds of Chinese citizens, and pork treated with sodium borate to make it look like beef. In Jiangsu province, reports emerged last week of watermelon crops bursting after farmers misused a chemical growth accelerator, forchlorfenuron.
"I thought it was a joke at first," Ms. Palmerston says of the exploding watermelons. "When I heard it was actually because they were given this growth chemical ... that kind of freaked me out. Because if the watermelon doesn't show up saying [what was used to treat it] how do you have any idea what you're putting in your body?"
When it comes to fresh produce, very little of what's available in Canadian grocery stores comes from China, according to Frédéric Alberro, Quebec vice-president of the Retail Council of Canada, which represents supermarkets, including Loblaw and Metro. At Metro, for instance, the only Chinese products in the produce section are garlic, ginger and specific varieties of pear and apple.
David Wilkes, senior vice-president of the retail council's grocery division, emphasizes that Canadian grocers are in the business of ensuring they deliver safe food to consumers, and they closely follow the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) regarding what food is considered safe.
"We have one of the highest records of food safety around the world," Mr. Wilkes says. "We are confident in the job that CFIA does."
The CFIA was unable to respond specifically to questions about the safety of imports from China by press time. But a media relations officer wrote in an e-mail that it carefully reviews the requests of various countries to export food products to Canada. "The requirements of an exporting country's health authority are thoroughly examined to ensure that they comply with Canadian health criteria, and all foreign plants wishing to export food to Canada must also be able to show that they consistently meet Canada's food safety standards."
Besides inspecting labels and facilities throughout the food distribution system, the CFIA also conducts lab analyses to ensure foods comply with Canadian safety requirements, the e-mail said.
But food inspection in Canada is by no means foolproof. In September 2010, the CFIA's own auditor reported that foreign foods were entering the country without proper inspection.In response, the CFIA noted it had already started to ramp up its surveillance of imported foods before the results of the audit were released, including redirecting staff to conduct "border blitzes." This March, the Conservative Party pledged to spend an additional $100-million over the next five years to boost Canada's food inspection system. But some consumers remain skeptical about its ability to catch unsafe imports.
"I would like to see how many packages they're actually opening and testing," says Orillia, Ont., resident Jim Frape, who notes he's careful to avoid buying any food from China.
Mr. Frape says he also questions how rigorously inspectors check Chinese products that are packaged elsewhere and aren't necessarily labelled as Chinese. Chinese honey, for instance, is often sold in North America as products of Indonesia, Malaysia or Taiwan. Plus, food items can be labelled Product of Canada or Made in Canada but include imported ingredients.
Janet Auty-Carlisle of Mansfield, Ont., says her family grows its own or buys locally grown produce, and scrutinizes food labels to steer clear of Chinese products. Although Chinese authorities have come down hard on producers who use toxic additives - and some even view the recent rash of food scandals as a positive sign the government is tackling the problem - Ms. Auty-Carlisle says she prefers to control what she consumes herself.
"As much as I understand there are what they say are crackdowns, I hold my own judgment on that, and we'll see. We'll see what happens," she says.
Jim Morehouse, senior partner at the management consulting firm A.T. Kearney in Chicago, says Canadian and U.S. consumers have good reason to be wary of Chinese imports.
"The problem is that things grown in China are often grown in polluted soil, so you get all sorts of things in the product that you didn't want. It's not just pesticides, it's heavy metals and other kinds of things," says Mr. Morehouse, who has done extensive research on China's food safety problems. He notes that food handling procedures in China may also be dubious.
Mr. Morehouse led a study, presented in 2007 at the industry CIES World Food Business Summit in Shanghai , that concluded China needs a $100-billion (U.S.) investment to fix its "broken" food safety process, including improving safety standards, warehousing, transportation and training. While Chinese authorities have since introduced better food-safety legislation, that hasn't solved the issue of improving the country's basic infrastructure, he says.
Traditionally, he adds, Chinese authorities tend to paper overscandals, issuing mass arrests and swift executions to give the impression of aggressive action. In 2007, for instance, the former head of the country's food and drug administration was executed after he was found guilty of accepting bribes from companies to sidestep safety checks. And in the wake of the 2008 tainted-milk scandal, when at least six children died and more than 300,000 were sickened, China executed two men for their role in selling the melamine-laced baby formula. Yet Mr. Morehouse says the underlying problems still persist.
"They don't play by the same rules," he says. "The issue is that China is a much more entrepreneurial culture than we live in and ethically, getting somebody sick is not particularly a big deal in China, where in the U.S. or Canada, getting somebody sick is a really big deal."
"You want to cut to the bottom line?" Mr. Morehouse adds. "Buy your produce from somebody that you know and trust and has a track record."
Correction: Leanne Palmerston was looking to buy evaporated milk, not condensed milk. Incorrect information appeared on May 20
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