The Canadian Food Inspection Agency told The Globe in statement that Joriki Beverages Inc. did not follow federal policy for swabbing frequency inside the Pickering, Ont., production facility for listeria before the outbreak.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
Almost one-fifth of the country’s federally licensed food-production facilities have not been assessed for risk by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and have instead been given a default rating that deems them a low priority for inspections.
Of the roughly 8,000 such facilities in Canada, 1,443 of them – or 18 per cent – have never submitted information to the CFIA’s algorithm-based system that assesses which sites are prioritized for inspection, and have not been independently examined by the agency. The numbers were provided by the CFIA in response to questions from The Globe and Mail.
All of the unassessed facilities produce what are known as manufactured foods. This category, which comprises food made at roughly half of the country’s federally licensed facilities, includes products such as condiments, oils, baby foods and vegan dairy substitutes. It does not include meat producers and dairy processors.
Without submitting information to the agency about food-production methods, or what type of sanitization steps and pathogen-mitigation procedures are in place, the facilities have been assigned a rating of Priority 6, one of its lowest risk ratings for inspections. That is the second-lowest ranking on a seven-level system operated by the CFIA, the agency said.
“I’m stunned to hear that,” said Dr. Lawrence Goodridge, a professor of food microbiology at the University of Guelph. “That’s highly concerning.”
Industry provides the self-reported information to the CFIA for its “Establishment-based Risk Assessment Model,” or ERAM, which is an algorithm-based system that decides which plants get more attention for inspections and which are less of a priority, or not inspected at all.
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A Globe investigation last week found the algorithm had determined that a facility in Pickering, Ont., which was linked by public health officials to a deadly listeria outbreak this summer, was deemed a lower priority for inspections. The facility had been given a risk rating of Priority 3 and had not been visited by a CFIA inspector in the past five years.
The 1,443 manufactured-food facilities that have yet to be assessed are subject to the “same inspection frequency as an ERAM category 6 establishment,” the CFIA said in an e-mail to The Globe in response to questions about the algorithm. “This is based on the general level of risk associated to manufactured foods.”
The site in Pickering was producing certain types of plant-based milks sold under the Silk and Great Value brands. The Public Health Authority of Canada said the listeria outbreak this summer sickened at least 20 people, and killed three, though experts say such illnesses are often under-reported.
The Globe’s investigation found that the CFIA’s algorithm system, which was introduced five years ago, relies mostly on information supplied by the companies to determine if the plant needed to be inspected. Two current inspectors told The Globe that the data are often not independently verified, creating a system in which facilities across the country are not flagged for inspections, even if one may be required, and companies are left to police themselves. The Globe isn’t naming the two inspectors because they fear reprisals for speaking publicly.
Public health officials, using genome sequencing, determined that the listeria strain involved in this summer’s outbreak was responsible for illnesses detected as far back as August, 2023. This means, experts say, that for almost a year, a listeria problem was in the facility.
The Pickering facility is operated by Joriki Inc., a privately owned company that was contracted by Danone Canada, a subsidiary of French dairy giant Danone SA, to make the plant-based milk products. Millions of Silk and Great Value products were recalled on July 8.
The CFIA told The Globe in statement that Joriki did not follow federal policy for swabbing frequency inside the facility for listeria before the outbreak, and had not been conducting any testing for the bacteria in finished products or on any food-contact surfaces.
Joriki denied those allegations, saying in a statement to The Globe that it had a monitoring program for listeria in place, which included swabbing the production line and conducting finished-product testing. Joriki said the CFIA never raised any concerns about its program prior to the outbreak, adding that it has only seen government data on one of the cases.
Under the algorithm system, the CFIA said the Pickering plant’s Priority 3 rating should have put it in line for an inspection at least once a year. It said the current target for a Priority 6 establishment is “a less detailed annual inspection,” focused on control measures in place at the company.
The CFIA inspectors who spoke to The Globe said the Pickering facility, at a Priority 3, was too far down the list to be flagged for inspections. Inspectors mostly focus on Priority 1 and 2 facilities, such as meat-processing plants and any foods destined for export, owing to staffing numbers and workload.
Responding to questions from The Globe in October, the CFIA acknowledged no inspector had been to the facility during the 11-month outbreak period. The CFIA later told The Globe, after further questioning, that no inspector had been to the site since 2019, and that was to check on consumer complaints of alleged mould.
Asked when the last time the CFIA inspected the Pickering facility for listeria protocols, to conduct random swabbing for the bacteria, or to inspect the company’s listeria practices based on its license requirements, the CFIA could not provide a date.
Food-safety experts interviewed by The Globe were caught off-guard by the revelation that 1,443 federally licensed food-manufacturing facilities have been automatically slotted as low-risk in the Priority 6 category by virtue of having yet to submit information on their operations.
Rick Holley, a University of Manitoba professor emeritus who was among those who informed the development of the ERAM algorithm, said he was surprised by the statistics provided by the CFIA to The Globe. “If that’s what it means, that’s inconsistent with the whole program,” Dr. Holley said. “It doesn’t make any food-safety sense.”
But regardless of the federal oversight system, he said the onus is on companies to ensure that the products they make are safe. “Companies have to rise to the occasion here,” Dr. Holley said.
Sylvain Charlebois, a food-safety policy professor at Dalhousie University, was also part of the group of academics and other experts convened by the CFIA about a decade ago to evaluate which risk factors would go into the algorithm. He said the default rating for unassessed facilities is a flaw in the algorithm system that creates a significant blind spot.
“They’re treating the unassessed as average,” Prof. Charlebois said. “You want the opposite. You want the regulator to consider the unassessed as high-risk for now, temporarily,” until proven otherwise.
He said the default ranking also sends the wrong message and dissuades companies from submitting their information as quickly as possible. “I don’t see how this can actually incentivize companies or operators to complete the assessment when they’ll be considered as average for the time being,” he said.
The University of Guelph’s Dr. Goodridge said the food-safety system is built on the idea that regulators can’t inspect every site. “There’s a need to place more emphasis on the foods that are higher risk and less emphasis on those that lower risk – but less does not equal zero,” he said.
The CFIA is placing too much trust in industry when it comes to food safety, Dr. Goodridge said, adding that some companies will inevitably cut corners. “Any time you have the opportunity to self-police, it generally doesn’t end well.”
He described what happened at the Joriki facility as a “complete breakdown” in the inspection system – one that he believes is rooted in Ottawa placing too much trust in companies to adequately self-police.
“For a production facility not to be inspected at all, for five years, is ridiculous,” he said. “It’s unconscionable. It’s unacceptable. I always say, ‘Canada has one of the safest food supplies in the world.’ But then when I hear something like this, it sounds to me like a ticking time bomb.”