I still get confused when checking the labels on Canadian food. I read this article from Todd Maffin and thought I would share it. I enjoy his thoughts:
I want to move to Australia. |
And before you angrily hit Reply, hear me out, because I have one very specific reason, and it involves Froot Loops. |
The label we need |
Australia has a food labelling system that should make every Canadian deeply embarrassed. |
When you pick up a product in an Australian grocery store, you see a kangaroo logo inside a triangle. Beneath that logo is a bar chart, one that tells you, instantly, what percentage of the ingredients in that product are actually Australian. 
This became mandatory there in 2018. | Now let me remind you what we have in Canada. There is a legal definition for "Made in Canada" and "Product of Canada." | Then, we have an absolute clusterfuck of vague but impressive-sounding claims like "Prepared in Canada" or "Packed in Canada" or "Imported by this Canadian company" and "Farted on briefly in Canada while it was in transit." | No bar chart. No house hippo holding up a percentage. It should be easier to compare products. | For instance, two boxes of Froot Loops. Should I buy: | 🇨🇦 / 🇺🇸 — the one that’s made in Canada by Canadians (Kellogg’s “Froot Loops”), but owned by and run by an American company? 🇺🇸 / 🇨🇦 — or the copycat cereal (Western Family’s “Fruity Whirls”) made by a Canadian company but uses American ingredients, is a product of the U.S., and doesn't disclose where it's actually made?
| If we can require bilingual labelling on every package of gum from Nunavut to Niagara, if we can regulate the curvature of cucumbers, surely we can replace this hodgepodge nonsense of "made in, assembled in, packaged in" and just put a little bar chart on a box of crackers so I know if the wheat came from Saskatchewan or Spokane. | Saskatchewan or Spokane? | Am I holding something grown by a Canadian farmer, or something assembled in a warehouse from seventeen countries that all technically touched the product for eleven seconds? | Australia gave the world Vegemite, mandatory voting, hot people, and the phrase "no worries." And now they are lapping us on food transparency. I'd be more embarrassed, but I can't tell where my feelings were manufactured.
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