Cans move on the conveyor at Sprague Foods in Belleville, Ont. The push to buy domestic products was a massive catalyst for the brand.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s crackdown on major grocers for “maple washing” has raised concerns among food manufacturers, who fear the consumer-protection measures against overstating a product’s ties to Canada could unintentionally lead retailers to invest less in Canadian products.
On Monday, the CFIA announced that since last spring, it has imposed $47,000 in fines on five businesses for misleading or inaccurate country-of-origin claims. Those include two $10,000 penalties in January on stores owned by grocery giant Loblaw Cos. Ltd.
In an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, Loblaw spokesperson Scott Bonikowsky acknowledged the CFIA’s findings, adding that the company is “sorry for the error and any confusion it may have caused.”
The CFIA is also investigating labelling and advertising overseen by the Sobeys head office, the agency said in a statement to The Globe. The Sobeys investigation was first reported by the CBC. Sobeys spokesperson Karen White-Boswell declined to comment.
The CFIA is responding to consumer concerns that retail giants are falsely capitalizing on the buy-Canadian movement, which began in early 2025 in response to U.S. threats of annexation and tariffs – and continued after U.S. President Donald Trump implemented punishing import fees on a number of trading partners, including Canada.
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Stores responded to the consumer demand, promoting domestic products with shelf tags sporting maple leaf icons, and end-of-aisle displays featuring Canadian goods.
The movement has also been a boon to national food manufacturers. And while consumer transparency is important, the CFIA penalties could backfire if retailers begin to see marketing Canadian products as too risky, said Kristina Farrell, executive officer of Food and Beverage Canada.
“I think it certainly does a disservice when products end up mislabelled at the grocery store,” said Ms. Farrell. “... But what we don’t want to do is encourage mistrust in our food system or what consumers are going to buy in stores.”
Keenan Sprague saw the effects of the buy-Canadian movement firsthand. His family has been in the canned bean industry for just over a century. But as Sprague Foods’ traditional business – canning beans for store brands – found itself outbid for contracts by large-scale global operations, the company decided to launch its own soup and chili brand six years ago. Belleville, Ont.-based Sprague sources various beans from Saskatchewan and vegetables from Quebec.
The push to buy domestic products was a “massive catalyst” for the brand, Mr. Sprague said. He was able to secure listings in Metro, Sobeys and Loblaw stores – shelf space that is notoriously difficult to secure for smaller brands. Sprague’s sales boomed.
Sprague Foods CEO Rick Sprague, left, and his son Keenan Sprague, the company's president, on the plant floor on Wednesday.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
“For us, it was really a vehicle of discovery,” Mr. Sprague said. “... Before this, we were truly living in a globalized system where you were almost indifferent to where it came from.”
Many other Canadian businesses caught the same tailwinds, said Ms. Farrell, leading processors to start sourcing more from domestic growers, as retailers committed to promoting Canadian products.
However, consumers grew frustrated with some of those communications: In the first three months of 2025, the CFIA saw a more than eight-fold spike in complaints about false origin labelling. The CFIA identified 75 instances of non-compliance last year, resulting from consumer complaints relating to country-of-origin claims on food labels or in advertisements.
In response to questions about the CFIA findings, Loblaw’s Mr. Bonikowsky wrote that the retailer is taking measures at its stores to prevent issues with its labelling in future.
“We are committed to meeting regulatory requirements and making sure customers can trust the information they see in our stores,” he wrote.
As ‘Buy Canadian’ surges, companies trip over ‘maple-washing’ mistakes
There are strict rules for what can be called Canadian on product labels. For food, a “product of Canada” must contain at least 98-per-cent Canadian content, whereas a product can be called “made in Canada” if it has undergone a substantial transformation in the country – even if it contains imported ingredients.
But keeping track of supply chains across thousands of items in stock is complex, said Kim Furlong, president and chief executive officer of the Retail Council of Canada.
Retailers “understand the trust that’s associated with making those claims, and they’re working toward making sure that what they’re saying is accurate,” she said. “What we’ve seen are isolated incidents; it’s not rampant.”
Still, with fines limited to a maximum of $25,000 for serious violations, steeper penalties are needed to truly disincentivize false advertising, said Wendy Hutton, a product regulation lawyer with Dickinson Wright. To a major grocer, the existing fines are akin to a 10-cent speeding ticket and are “pretty much meaningless,” she said.
The Sprague family has been in the canned bean industry for just over a century.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Others disagree, worrying the penalties could have negative implications for the buy-Canadian movement if retailers opt out of made-in-Canada marketing altogether.
“I just hope they continue to put emphasis on doing it and getting it right – as opposed to the retailer saying, ‘Well, it’s not worth it,’” said Peter Chapman, a former Loblaw executive and founder of consulting firm SKUFood.
Buy-Canadian sentiment has waned slightly since last year, according to a quarterly Bank of Canada survey, but a majority of people still report they are spending more on Canadian goods and less on American products.
Food and Beverage Canada would like to see more foods advertised as Canadian. The group is recommending that labelling requirements be adjusted, allowing a “product of Canada” designation for food containing 85-per-cent domestic ingredients, down from the current 98-per-cent threshold.
“Even if some ingredients are imported, the value is still created in Canada and still being processed by Canadian manufacturers, and by people employed here in Canada,” Ms. Farrell said.