Think that Buying Local translates into healthier food choices? Think again.
We’re being directed towards foods that are highly processed and loaded with sugar.
The COVID-19 pandemic has initiated many a reflection on how to change supply chains. When governments were caught by the realization that all of their Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) was being sourced from China, and if the Chinese labour force had the virus, their supply would be disrupted. And it was.
So governments have gone on a binge of encouraging local manufacture of these essential goods. Surgical blouses, gloves, masks, disinfectant — it all suddenly had to be made much closer to the care givers that needed it. Once that panic was dealt with, government then turned their attention to other supply chains, including food. The land border between Canada and the United States was kept open for truckers who were essential in delivering food stuffs from warmer climes to our grocery stores. That was a good step to take, but it still didn’t address the issue that a lot of the food that we consume is grown elsewhere, or produced elsewhere.
The Province of Quebec decided to do something about it. As I’ve written in this space before, they’ve set a target to increase the amount of food consumed by Quebeckers that is grown in the Province from 40% to 50%. To do that, they’ve invested money into an online platform to increase the visibility of goods made in the province (Panier Bleu), as well as putting money forward — and instructing the Hydro utility to offer preferential power rates — to encourage farmers to build or improve greenhouses to grow more vegetables and fruits during the colder months of the year.
Québec has had for some time a labelling framework to inform consumers about food items grown and produced in the province. The logos above can be found on any number of food items and during the summer months, certain portions of the fruit and vegetable sections in grocery stores also sport this logo. A poll conducted by Leger for Coalition Poids revealed that 3 out of 4 Quebeckers (76%) believe that consuming locally produced food products is better for their health, the environment and the economy.
However, just because a particular food item has that logo on it — or any logo trumpeting the local provenance of a particular food item — doesn’t mean that you’re purchasing a product that’s better or healthier for you.
First, some background on logos.
The Aliments du Québec logos were created in the mid-1990s by the agri-food industry in the province. The members of the Board of the non-profit organization that manages the logo and certification process include representatives from the restaurant, farmer, dairy, fishing, processing, and food retailing industries in the province, as well as the Provincial Ministry of Agriculture. The logos started appearing on food packaging and in grocery stores in 2009. In 2013, they added Organic designations to their logos and today, they have over 1,300 companies, and over 22,000 products, who have been approved by the organization to use the logos.
In order to use the logos on a food product, producers and transformers need to apply for the privilege, and respect minimum requirements, regardless of the products nutritive value. Further, adherents have to pay an annual fee for continued use of the logo.
For example, the logo Aliments du Québec (Québec Food Item) signifies that a product is composed of a minimum of 85% of its ingredients sourced within the Province, as well as all the transforming and packaging activities have to be conducted within the Province as well.
For the logo Aliments Préparés au Québec (Food prepared in Québec), the food product has to be transformed and packaged in the Province, but can be made of a mix of imported and local (within the Province) ingredients.
However, given the hurdle in obtaining an authorization from Aliments du Québec to label a product as originating in the Province, some grocery retailers have produced their own designations for local products.
In addition, some producers have gone the extra mile — included not only the Aliments du Québec logo, but their own logo or package message to illustrate that a product is made or prepared in the province.
The example above is a mild case of how to confuse consumers: mangoes don’t grow in the Province of Québec, but Apples do. Clearly, by using the Aliments du Québec logo (a pre-2019 version), the company has gone through the certification hoops and pays their annual fees. At the same time, they’ve decided to let consumers know in big type that this is, in fact, a ‘local’ product.
But consumers are not fooled. This image was taken from Twitter, where consumers clearly understood that mangoes are not grown in the province, and proceeded to use this image to denigrate the Aliments du Québec logo with respect to the inclusion of mangoes.
There are other examples of the ‘non-official’ logos out there and this raises a key question concerning trust: which logo do consumers trust to provide them the assurance that the product they are buying is truly made in the province, better for them, and better for the environment and economy?
Coalition Poids (Full name: Coalition Québecoise sur la Problèmatique du poids, or Weight Coalition, for short), an initiative of the Québec Public Health Association, recently conducted research during the pandemic of the five major grocery store chains publicity flyers between 24 September 2020 and 28 October 2020. They singled out all products that were labelled as being produced in Québec — whether by using the Aliments du Québec logo, or an in-store logo — to get a better portrait of the local products being offered at a discount to Québec shoppers.
This analysis revealed some startling conclusions:
- Fully half the promoted products are considered to be ‘ultra processed’, which, according to the NOVA classification of processed foods, is defined as foods that contain added sugar, salt, saturated fats, as well as (take a breath) any one or a combination of preservatives, antioxidants, stabilizers, dyes, flavours, and processing aids, such as carbonating, firming, bulking and anti-bulking, de-foaming, anti-caking and glazing agents, emulsifiers, sequestrants and humectants. The Coalition Poids notes that consuming such foods leads the development of obesity and chronic illnesses as well as being detrimental to the environment.
- Four out of ten promoted foods contained excess levels of sugar, salt and saturated fats. ‘Excess’ is defined as exceeding the recommended Health Canada definition for labelling where a particular products contains 15% or more of a person’s daily allowance of any of sugar, salt or saturated fats;
- Highly sugared drinks, alcoholic drinks, and ultra-processed foods are subject to the most promotional activity and, further, are being doubly valorized because of their provenance in being produced in Québec; and
- The ‘official’ Aliments du Québec logo is used more often on ultra-processed foods than the in-store logos.
One product in particular — sugared, carbonated drinks — were highlighted six times per week, by flyer, giving them a significant profile in terms of potential savings, and eyeballs on the flyer, which in turn would generate shoppers in the store. The flyers also highlighted beers, many with well known national, or continental brands, that happened to be brewed in the Province, and could be considered ‘local’ enough to have an in-store logo used to sell the product.
Based solely on the results of this research, Québec consumers are duping their own health for the privilege of purchasing products that are considered local. There is no question that these products are locally produced, and are good for the local economy, as they are produced by companies located in the Province, employing Quebeckers.
Given that consumers have an expectation that purchasing locally produced products is better for their health, the grocery stores are doing their customers a disservice by promoting products that are clearly not healthy. Over time, this will have an effect on the trust that consumers have for the products they buy, for if it erodes one of the three principal reasons for purchasing local in the first place, consumers may turn their buying attention elsewhere.
The Weight Coalition has a number of recommendations for the Provincial Government to consider when deploying their strategy around the purchasing of locally produced and prepared foods, including:
- Better circumscribing the various publicity campaigns for products that are high in sugar, salt and saturated fats and are ultra-processed;
- Subsidize the promotion of foods that have a higher nutritive value, such as group 1 and 2 foods according to the NOVA classification (raw foods, such as fruits and vegetables, and their derivative products, such as oils, dairy, flour, etc.).
- Abstain from subsidizing producers of products that have a proven negative impact on human health;
- Work on adopting labelling requirements for products that better communicate essential information concerning the level of sugar, salt and saturated fats; and
- Do more for promoting products which are healthy, local and responsible for the environment.
Food fraud — where producers deliberately mislabel, or sell one product they say is one thing, but in fact, is actually something else — is prevalent throughout the world. The European Commission publishes a Food Fraud summary every month, where they gather together publicly reported cases of fraud in the food system. In the month of February, 2021, some interesting cases came to light:
- Hong Kong customs officers seized 400 kilograms of cherries that were labelled as being from a reputable Tasmanian brand. The Tasmanian company raised the alarm with Hong Kong authorities when it noticed that one of the unique identifiers it uses on its packaging was consistently being re-used;
- The Italian Carabinieri seized 800 kilograms of anchovies in oil as the jars had fake labels of another well-known brand.
Even organic labeling organizations have issues in how their trademark is used. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a labelling initiative where products can be stamped ‘USDA Organic’ after meeting a number of criteria, including being produced without excluded methods (genetic engineering, ionizing radiation, etc.), using only allowed substances (both synthetic and non-synthetic permitted in the production process) and continually overseen by USDA Organic certification agents. They are particularly vigilant about the use of the certificates by non-conforming organizations, and even publish on the USDA website a list of organizations that have been caught using fake certificates, as well as the actual fraudulent certificates used.
I’m not suggesting that the Tradition brand of juice in the picture above is committing fraud by the way it’s labeled its apple-mango juice. Nor am I suggesting that any of the food items labeled as local, and promoted by grocery chains, are in some way fraudulent; Tradition is a genuine Québec company, with 600 acres of orchards that produces a lot of apple juice. But it is misleading consumers into thinking that the mangoes it is using are somehow locally produced. And even such a limited error on their part contributes to the creation of distrust in the use of the Aliments du Québec logo and certification process. Mind you, if mango juice is less than 15% of the total juice in the bottle, then it’ll pass the Aliments du Québec criteria. But how many consumers know that?
When is comes to food, trust is key. Food is an essential product for us all. We need to know that the products we buy are produced in places where health standards are high, where workers are treated with equity and where the food actually comes from the farm the producer says it does.
When the product moves to distribution in the hands of our grocery chains, they also need to act responsibly. Steering consumers to purchase products that are clearly not good for our health, by using the marketing hook of being producing locally, undermines the efficacy of the process used to certify a product as local. Consumers clearly expect a locally produced product to be better for them, and yet, what the grocery chains promote are not.
With time, such small, incremental abuses of the provenance and quality of locally produced food items will undermine the loyalty consumers will have in the Aliments du Québec certification process and, by extension, in their local food producers. This would be an immense disservice to all the local food producers in the Province who are trying to get their product into consumer’s hands and effectively sabotage the Government’s strategy of encouraging more local production of food.
