Adulterated imported honey discovery shows what can be done, agriculture minister says.Ottawa—The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will receive $24.4 million to expand its efforts to prevent the marketing of fraudulent food products, Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau has announced.The funding will enable CFIA to revamp its existing food fraud program to conduct additional inspections and collect more samples to uncover sources of food fraud as well as gather surveillance data, the minister said. The funding will also support the development of new detection methods and tools to help identify food fraud and enhance awareness about food authenticity.Food fraud is “an emerging issue resulting in consumers and food business not getting what they are paying for,” she said. “It can pose a potential health risk to consumers, reputational risks to our world-class Canadian food industry, as well as unfair competition for our producers.”The most common food frauds involve olive oil, honey, dry spices, fish, and organic food products. It's a growing issue internationally and is estimated to cost the global food industry between $10 and $15 billion per year, affecting about 10 per cent of all commercially-sold food products, she said.The most recently revealed food fraud in Canada involved imported honey adulterated with sugars. CFIA said an investigation in 2018 of honey being offered for sale prevented more than 12,000 kilograms of fraudulent honey valued at close to $77,000 from entering the Canadian market. In 2017, Canada produced 92 million pounds of honey, worth $188 million, while imports were worth $41 million.CFIA said of the 240 samples it tested for added sugars, 188 were satisfactory while 52 weren't. The sampling was targeted not random and is not necessarily representative of the Canadian marketplace overall.In a report on its investigation, CFIA focused “on risk areas such as establishments with a history of noncompliance, gaps in preventive controls, or unusual trading patterns.” It is still following up on all products found to be noncompliant.CFIA worked with the Canada Border Services Agency on the investigation. Pure honey is duty-free whereas artificial honey involves a rate of duty.Preventing food fraud is a CFIA priority. Under the new Safe Food for Canadians Regulations, food businesses need to have a preventative control plan that includes the steps they will take to make sure that any imported food meets Canadian requirements.Businesses need to keep traceability records to allow them to track the path of a food product in the supply chain to help during a fraud investigation. CFIA analyzes food products, inspects domestic and imported products, focuses on areas of greater risk of fraud and provides labelling tools to educate industry and consumers on food label information.“When cases of food fraud are identified and products are found to be non-compliant, we will take appropriate regulatory actions such as putting in place control measures or take enforcement actions,” CFIA said. “In some cases, we may recommend prosecution, depending on the severity of the fraud and whether previous enforcement actions had been taken.”Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.