Counterfeit cukes?
WHOPPING FINES LEVIED AGAINST AN ONTARIO VEGETABLE PRODUCER HAVE SOME QUESTIONING JUST HOW RELIABLE PRODUCE LABELS REALLY ARE.
Even on hot days, the forklift operators at the teeming Ontario Food Terminal wear j ackets. The showrooms keep the temperature low to preserve the cornucopia of available fruits and vegetables. One operator, perched on a platform at the back of his forklift, impassively munches an apple as he swings past with a load of cauliflower, eggplant and kale.
In a kind of ballet dance under cathedral- like ceilings, the forklifts zip up and down ramps and around corners, loading trucks that will whisk the food to restaurants and grocery stores.
These days, thanks to important investments in greenhouses in Ontario, many of the peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers sold here are locally grown. They come to Canada’s largest fruit and produce wholesale market by truck from gargantuan hydroponic operations concentrated near Leamington, Ont.
For instance, Streef Produce Ltd. boasts Regal tomatoes from Leamington, Platinum Produce Co. sweet peppers from Blenheim, and St. David’s hydroponic eggplant from Niagara-on-the-Lake.
The produce industry is a big, fierce and cutthroat business. Margins can be razor thin, and wholesalers must sell the merchandise while it is fresh. There are rules, too. For example: having to tell the truth about the origin of the produce.
A year ago, Mucci International Marketing Inc., Mucci Pac Ltd. and two executives paid fines totalling $1.5 million for falsely putting “Product of Canada” labels on large quantities of peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers grown elsewhere, mainly in Mexico. Mucci supplied mislabelled produce mainly to Costco, as well as to Loblaws and Sobeys.
The fine was a whopping penalty — more than 10 times the amount the Canadian Food Inspection Agency ( CFIA) has levied against any other food producer in Canada during the past few years.
But the story did not end there. The Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers ( OGVG) has since levied a $ 3.2- million fine against Mucci Pac and Mucci International, which produce, package and market greenhouse vegetables from a base in Leamington, Ont., for violating the marketing board’s regulations, according to documents obtained by the Financial Post.
That additional fine, and the secrecy surrounding it, raise questions about the veggies in supermarket produce bins. For many, the “Product of Canada” label is reassuring; consumers can pick up a Canadian pepper grown under strict rules of food safety and support local jobs. But is it really “product of Canada?” Or is it a counterfeit cuke?
“Consumers have the right to know where their food is coming from,” said Aline Dimitri, the CFIA’s deputy chief food safety officer.
The CFIA, on a routine inspection of the Ontario Food Terminal in January, 2012, discovered mislabelled peppers. Investigators later executed three search warrants on Mucci in 2013 and 2014, and seized more than 70 boxes of documents, according to an agreed statement of facts filed with the court in Windsor. A forensic accountant then reviewed the records of 243 Mucci deliveries.
“Produce was being repackaged and re- labelled with incorrect country of origin information ... Mucci representatives had told re- pack workers to do so,” reads the agreed statement of facts. This statement also quotes an email of a Mucci worker, who wrote that he was told “to make it Canada even though it is Mexico.”
Patrick Ducharme, a lawyer for Mucci, told a Postmedia reporter last summer that Mucci, working with a computer system that labels the vegetables as they come in and go out, mislabelled some of its products.
“We began working on resolving it to admit the mistakes they made and to agree that they would ensure there was compliance in the future,” he added.
The CFIA last June announced the Mucci companies and two executives had pleaded guilty to eight counts of contravening the Food and Drugs Act, the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act and the Canada Agricultural Products Act.
Subsequent action against Mucci took place in private.
An OGVG l etter dated March 28, 2017, notes that the vegetable growers held a hearing Sept. 29, 2016, under the marketing board’s regulations, “as a result of the companies and individuals related to Mucci International Marketing Inc. pleading guilty to CFIA charges for misrepresenting the origin of vegetables in the marketplace.
“Mucci Pac and Mucci International acknowledged their failures to comply with the General Regulations and as a result, the OGVG levied a combined fine of $ 3.2 million and a probation term of five (5) years against both companies,” the letter reads.
Any “evidence of new labelling infractions” will trigger a new hearing. If Mucci gets through the probation period in compliance with labelling rules, $1.6 million of the fine “will be suspended.”
The letter states the OGVG “has worked hard ... to make consumers aware of the advantages of purchasi ng Ontario greenhouse vegetables. We will continue to address any infractions of our General Regulations in order to maintain the brand and integrity associated with Ontario grown greenhouse vegetables.”
The OGVG refused to answer questions about its Mucci fine. The growers’ lawyer, Amy Dale, sent a letter to the Financial Post that read in part, “As is very clear from the face of that document, it was a communiqué to OGVG licensees, was not for redistribution or reproduction and was to be kept strictly private and confidential to OGVG licensees.”
The OGVG is a marketing board, to which, under Ontario rules, greenhouse growers must belong, and to whom they must pay fees. The board’s letter to the Post suggests that it informed its “licensees” of its fine against Mucci. But several greenhouse growers said they did not know of the provincial fine.
“I am not personally aware of it,” said Gord Bonisteel at St. David’s Hydroponics. “We are growing our own product at our greenhouses. It’s a vibrant industry. I’d like to think that other people are abiding by the rules.”
The CFIA said it is aware of the $3.2-million fine.
In a written response to the Post’s questions, the Ontario Farm Product Marketing Commission said, “OGVG’s Rules of Proced- ure state that oral hearings are private unless the board deems them to be public,” adding that, “Marketing boards are not required to provide the Commission with their hearing decisions.”
Mucci farms did not respond to several calls and emails requesting comment.
The OGVG’s March 28 letter said recipients can get more information from Rick Seguin, its general manager. But OGVG told the Post that Se guinnol onger works there. Reached at his home in Leamington, Seguin said the OGVG fired him in April. “The board wanted to go in a different direction,” he said. He did not elaborate.
Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of food distribution and dean of the Rowe School of Business at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said the secretive nature of the vegetable growers’ process did not surprise him.
“It was a group of peers punishing one of theirs, which is more delicate,” he said. “They are trying to clean up their act as a family.”
Charlebois said consumers will pay a premium of 15 to 20 per cent for products that are local and natural.
Produce prices at t he food terminal bear this out: Provincial Fruit Co. Ltd. put a price of $ 20 on a flat of 12 one- pint boxes of Mucci red cherry tomatoes, product of Mexico; a flat containing 12 one- pint boxes of Mucci’s locally grown“Sun drop, non- GMO” cherry tomatoes sold for $24.
“You are going to see more and more of these food fraud cases popping up,” Charlebois said. But he added food fraud is difficult to prove when it comes to vegetables.
“These cases are really complicated,” he said. “Usually the CFIA will act on complaints. To find evidence is not easy. You have to go into the business.
“Most companies’ morals and ethics are sound,” he added. “But there are a few companies ruining it for everyone and that’s the problem.”
At the food terminal, a manager at Provincial Fruit stood leaning on a tower of broccoli flats, eating a loquat ( product of Spain). When told of the $ 3.2- million fine against Mucci, he whistled under his breath.
“The world is a very small place,” the manager said. “If we can’t get any peppers from Leamington, because it’s been snowy or rainy or cold or cloudy and they’re not producing, t hen we bring in peppers from Mexico. The inspectors, who are in plainclothes, come in and make sure there is a country of origin and a distributor on the box.”
Not f ar away, Marcus Koornneef stood by a counter at Koornneef Produce Ltd. He is the third generation to wholesale fruits and vegetables from Grimsby, Ont.; his grandfather started the business selling fruit out of a pickup truck. Today, nine cucumber growers and three pepper farmers grow exclusively for the company.
Koornneef gets up on weekday sat 2:15 a.m. and arrives at the food terminal just after 3 a.m. He said all the wholesalers closely watch each other and fiercely compete.
“Competition in this industry is very dog- eat- dog,” Koornneef said. “These are not rolls of toilet paper. I’ve gotta sell these peppers. You can’t be asleep at the wheel. If you fall asleep and everyone else starts dropping their pants on the price of cucumbers, you lose out on those sales.”
Under those circumstances, one can see why it might be tempting to say that a vegetable is something that it is not.
“If we have intelligence that there is a substitution, we will act,” said Dimitri at the CFIA. “The vast majority of businesses are not out there to be fraudulent. Most are good industry citizens. People should still be vigilant. We have a range of enforcement tools.”
One possible tool could be to use nuclear magnetic resonance technology to determine where produce comes from based on its composition, a technique Charlebois said he recently tried out in Vienna. “We bought a half a dozen apples, labelled as grown in Italy,” he said. “The machinery told us the apples were likely coming from Spain.” The machine he used, he said, cost about 250,000 euros ($375,000).
“It’ s cost-prohibit ive to have on your kitchen counter,” he said, adding that researchers are working on a retail version of the produce origin-detector.
Until that is available, consumers have limited options. Short of growing vegetables in their backyards, shoppers will have to trust their suppliers — and the inspectors who monitor them.
THESE ARE NOT ROLLS OF TOILET PAPER. I’VE GOTTA SELL THESE PEPPERS. YOU CAN’T BE ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL. IF YOU FALL ASLEEP AND EVERYONE ELSE STARTS DROPPING THEIR PANTS ON THE PRICE OF CUCUMBERS, YOU LOSE OUT ON THOSE SALES. — MARCUS KOORNNEEF