CFIA's 2026 Food Fraud Report: What 150,000 kg of Seized Food Means for Your Compliance Program

On June 25, 2026, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) released its Food Fraud Annual Report 2024 to 2025. The headline is hard to ignore: the agency tested 886 samples for authenticity, verified hundreds of labels, and prevented more than 150,000 kg of misrepresented food from being sold in Canada. For food and beverage manufacturers, importers, distributors and co-packers, this report is more than a news item. It is a clear statement that food authenticity and accurate representation are active enforcement priorities, and it tells you exactly which products the CFIA is watching most closely.

This article breaks down what the report found, where compliance was weakest, what control and enforcement actions followed, and the practical steps your compliance program should take now. It is written for CEOs, founders, regulatory affairs managers, quality assurance managers and importers who need to translate a national report into action at their own facility.

Executive summary

The CFIA's Food Fraud Annual Report 2024 to 2025 covers the agency's work between April 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025. The agency tested 886 samples for authenticity, performed 362 label verifications, and took enforcement action that kept more than 150,000 kg of misrepresented food off the Canadian market. Overall authenticity compliance was similar to previous years. Olive oil had the lowest authenticity compliance rate at 67 percent, while maple syrup, meat, fish and fruit juice were the highest. Imported high-risk commodities, especially honey and olive oil, accounted for most of the volume removed, destroyed, recalled or relabelled. Enforcement ranged from letters of non-compliance and notices of violation through to Administrative Monetary Penalties and a prosecution resulting in a fine of more than $1.1 million. The message for industry is direct: build food fraud vulnerability into your Preventive Control Plan, qualify your suppliers and verify provenance, and treat authenticity and accurate labelling as testable, documented controls.

What is food fraud, and what did the CFIA report measure?

Food fraud is the act of selling food in a way that is false, misleading or deceptive, usually for economic gain. It includes diluting or substituting an ingredient, adding undeclared fillers, mislabelling species or origin, and overstating quality claims such as "extra virgin" or "Product of Canada." In Canada it is prohibited to sell food in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive about its character, value, quantity, composition, merit or safety. Industry, not the regulator, carries the legal responsibility to represent and label food accurately.

The CFIA is Canada's leading authority on food fraud oversight. It works under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, the Food and Drugs Act, the Food and Drug Regulations, the Safe Food for Canadians Act and the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SOR/2018-108). Health Canada works alongside the CFIA where misrepresentation may also involve a health or safety risk, for example an undeclared allergen.

The 2024 to 2025 report measured three things: authenticity testing of products in a laboratory, label verification by inspectors, and the enforcement that followed when products did not comply. Understanding how the CFIA collected its samples is essential to reading the numbers correctly.

Two very different sampling approaches

The report draws a clear line between two kinds of sampling, and the difference matters when you interpret the compliance rates.

Marketplace monitoring uses random, unbiased sampling by an independent third party at retailers across Canada. Because it is random, it is designed to gauge true compliance in the marketplace. This year, marketplace monitoring covered fresh meat tested for non-permitted sulfites and tea tested for masking dyes. Both returned 100 percent satisfactory results, across 148 and 98 samples respectively.

Targeted inspectorate sampling is different. Inspectors deliberately target higher-risk products based on history of non-compliance, unusual trading patterns and known gaps in preventive controls. The CFIA is explicit that targeted results are not representative of overall compliance in the Canadian marketplace. So when you see olive oil at 67 percent, read it as "the high-risk olive oil the CFIA chose to test," not "one in three bottles in Canada is fraudulent." That distinction is the kind of accurate, defensible interpretation regulators and auditors expect, and it is exactly how a credible compliance program should frame the data internally.

Where compliance was weakest: authenticity results by commodity

Of the 886 authenticity samples, 640 were targeted inspectorate samples and 246 were marketplace monitoring samples. Within the targeted group, 86 percent of results were satisfactory, 13 percent were unsatisfactory, and 1 percent required further investigation. The table below shows the targeted authenticity compliance rate for each commodity, what the CFIA tested for, and why it matters for your program.

Olive oil was the clear outlier, with one in three targeted samples failing. Every olive oil sample in the targeted program was an imported product. Honey was the next weakest at 81 percent, and almost all of the non-compliant honey was imported as well. The pattern is consistent: the highest authenticity risk sits in imported, high-value commodities where economic incentive to adulterate is strongest and supply chains are longest.

There is also a Canadian-production angle worth noting. Among foods produced in Canada, honey and maple syrup both returned 100 percent authenticity compliance, while domestic meat reached 91 percent and domestic fish 94 percent. Domestic producers performed well, which reinforces that provenance verification on imported inputs is where most programs need to focus.

The 150,000 kg headline: what was actually removed from the market

When the CFIA found non-compliance, it acted under its Standard Regulatory Response Process. Products were removed from Canada, voluntarily destroyed, recalled or relabelled before they could be sold. The more than 150,000 kg figure is dominated by a single commodity, as the breakdown shows.

Honey alone accounts for the overwhelming majority of the volume. The lesson is not that honey is uniquely dishonest, but that a single weak supplier relationship in a high-risk imported commodity can generate an enormous compliance and financial exposure. If your business imports or co-packs honey, oils, fish or juice, this table is your risk register.

Labels under the microscope: verification results

Beyond laboratory authenticity, CFIA inspectors performed 362 label verifications, split into basic label verifications and net quantity verifications. These checks catch a different class of misrepresentation: missing or incorrect common names, omitted country of origin, bilingual gaps, faults in the Nutrition Facts table, and packages that simply do not contain the declared amount of food.

Basic label verification returned 77 percent overall compliance (109 of 141). Fish labels were the weakest at 63 percent, followed by other expensive oils at 69 percent and other foods at 74 percent. Net quantity verification returned 88 percent overall compliance (194 of 221). Notably, the CFIA added a dedicated net quantity verification project for meat packaged and weighed at retail between January 25 and February 28, 2025, in response to public concern about underweight meat. That project returned 92 percent compliance, and where stores failed, the CFIA issued notices of violation with warning.

Accurate labelling is the most controllable part of this entire report. Unlike upstream adulteration, your label is something you create, approve and apply yourself. If you want to reduce your exposure to a CFIA finding, a disciplined label verification and reconciliation step at release is the single highest-value control you can run. Our guides to labelling compliance in Canada and the mandatory front-of-package nutrition symbol set out exactly how to build that control.

Enforcement: from letters to a $1.1 million fine

The report is a useful reminder that the CFIA's enforcement toolkit escalates, and that misrepresentation can carry serious financial and legal consequences. In 2024 to 2025 the agency reported the following actions tied to food misrepresentation:

• 13 letters of non-compliance
• 2 notices of violation with warning
• 6 notices of violation with penalties
• 1 high-value product recalled for an undeclared tree nut allergen
• 8 Administrative Monetary Penalties (AMPs) valued at $60,000
• A prosecution in which MPY Trading Ltd. was fined $1,155,685 under the Safe Food for Canadians Act for falsely declaring crab for export as Product of Canada, plus a fine related to traceability records

It is worth understanding the full ladder of responses available under the Safe Food for Canadians Act and Regulations, because targeted findings can move a regulated party up it quickly. The CFIA can request corrective action, detain or seize product, refuse entry to imports, order recalls, issue AMPs, and suspend or cancel a Safe Food for Canadians (SFC) licence. For a licence-holder, a suspension or cancellation can halt the ability to manufacture, import, export or sell interprovincially overnight. The CFIA also publishes the names of companies subject to enforcement action, so a finding carries reputational risk on top of the operational and financial hit.

Complaints and the Buy Canadian effect

The report also tracked over 380 consumer and industry complaints about food misrepresentation or advertising, with meat the most complained-about commodity. Two themes dominated: underweight products and misleading or missing country of origin claims.

Origin claims spiked sharply in early 2025. As the Buy Canadian movement gained momentum, complaints about Canadian-content claims such as Product of Canada and Made in Canada jumped from one or two per month to 25 in February and 33 in March 2025. The CFIA responded with a notice to industry reminding businesses to use origin claims accurately, and the agency has signalled that its next report, expected in late 2026, will include results from reviews of false or misleading in-store Canadian content claims. If your marketing leans on Canadian positioning, now is the time to confirm every such claim is substantiated and defensible.

What your compliance program should do now

The report is, in effect, a free risk assessment from the regulator. It tells you which commodities are under scrutiny, which failure modes are most common, and how enforcement is being applied. The right response is to build food fraud prevention into your existing quality system rather than treat it as a separate exercise. The most effective tool is a food fraud vulnerability assessment, often called VACCP (Vulnerability Assessment and Critical Control Points), integrated into your Preventive Control Plan.

Food fraud and authenticity compliance checklist

Use this checklist to gauge whether your program is ready for the scrutiny the report signals. If you cannot answer yes with supporting records, you have a gap to close.

• You have completed a food fraud vulnerability assessment (VACCP) covering every raw material and finished product.
• High-risk commodities you handle (oils, honey, fish, juice, spices, cheese) are flagged with documented mitigation.
• Your Preventive Control Plan addresses economically motivated adulteration, not only biological and chemical hazards.
• Suppliers of high-risk inputs are qualified, with provenance and authenticity evidence on file for each lot.
• Certificates of analysis and authenticity test results are reconciled before release, not filed unread.
• Country of origin and Canadian claims are substantiated and documented for every product that carries them.
• A label verification and net quantity reconciliation step is signed off at every batch release.
• Authenticity and species or varietal testing is scheduled for the highest-risk inputs on a risk basis.
• Your traceability system can identify one step back and one step forward within the required timeframe.
• You have run a mock recall and a mock CFIA inspection within the past 12 months.

Common food fraud compliance mistakes

In our experience supporting food and beverage clients, the same avoidable weaknesses appear again and again.

• Treating food fraud as someone else's problem. Assuming a foreign supplier's paperwork is sufficient proof of authenticity, with no independent verification.
• A PCP that ignores economic adulteration. Hazard analysis that covers pathogens and allergens but never considers vulnerability to fraud.
• Single-source dependence on a high-risk commodity. Relying on one unaudited supplier for honey, oil or juice with no provenance checks.
• Unverified claims. Carrying extra virgin, Product of Canada or varietal claims that the business cannot substantiate on request.
• Certificates filed, not read. Collecting certificates of analysis without reconciling them against the product or the specification.
• No net quantity control. Assuming fill weights are correct without periodic verification, the exact issue that drew CFIA attention to retail meat.
• Stale supplier qualification. Approving a supplier once and never re-auditing as trading patterns or sources change.

How MFLRC can help

MF License & Regulatory Consultants (MFLRC) helps food and beverage manufacturers, importers, distributors and co-packers turn a report like this into a defensible compliance position. Our consultants bring more than 20 years of quality assurance and regulatory experience across food, pharmaceuticals, natural health products and cannabis, and we deliver practical systems, not generic checklists.

• Food fraud vulnerability assessments (VACCP): structured assessment of every raw material and product against economically motivated adulteration, with prioritized, documented mitigation.
• Supplier qualification and provenance verification: building the supplier approval, authenticity evidence and origin-verification controls that hold up when the CFIA traces a finding back through your chain.
• Preventive Control Plan updates: integrating food fraud and authenticity controls into your existing PCP so they are inspection-ready. See our guide on preparing for the CFIA's inspection of 2,400 food facilities.
• Labelling and authenticity review: verifying common names, claims, country of origin, bilingual content and net quantity declarations against current requirements.
• Mock recall and traceability readiness: testing your ability to trace, hold and recall product quickly and completely.
• Audits and gap assessments: independent review of your program against the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations through our audit and gap assessment services.

Explore our food and beverage regulatory support, import and export compliance support, and regulatory affairs, licensing and import/export services, or learn more about MFLRC.

Frequently asked questions

What is the CFIA Food Fraud Annual Report 2024 to 2025?

It is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's yearly summary of its work to prevent misrepresented food from being sold in Canada, published on June 25, 2026, and covering April 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025. It reports authenticity testing of 886 samples, 362 label verifications, and enforcement that prevented more than 150,000 kg of misrepresented food from being sold.

Which foods had the lowest food authenticity compliance?

Olive oil had the lowest authenticity compliance in the CFIA's targeted testing, at 67 percent, meaning one in three targeted samples did not comply. Honey was next at 81 percent. Maple syrup (100 percent), meat (94 percent), fish (90 percent) and fruit juice (88 percent) had the highest compliance. Targeted results reflect deliberately high-risk sampling and are not representative of the whole marketplace.

Why was so much honey removed from the market?

Of the more than 150,000 kg of misrepresented food prevented from being sold, 133,420 kg was adulterated honey, almost all of it imported and diluted with foreign sugars such as cane, corn or rice syrups. Honey is a long-standing global food fraud target because of its value and complex supply chains, which is why provenance verification on imported honey is critical.

What enforcement actions can the CFIA take for food fraud?

The CFIA can request corrective action, detain or seize product, refuse entry to imports, order recalls, issue Administrative Monetary Penalties, and suspend or cancel a Safe Food for Canadians licence. Serious cases can be prosecuted. In 2024 to 2025 the agency issued 13 letters of non-compliance, 8 notices of violation, 8 AMPs worth $60,000, and secured a prosecution fine of $1,155,685.

Are importers more likely to be sampled for authenticity?

Yes. The CFIA's targeted inspectorate sampling deliberately focuses on higher-risk products, and imported high-value commodities such as olive oil, honey, fish and fruit juice featured heavily in the findings. Importers of these categories should expect targeted sampling and should hold authenticity, origin and net quantity evidence for every lot.

How do we protect our business from a food fraud finding?

Build a food fraud vulnerability assessment (VACCP) into your Preventive Control Plan, qualify and re-audit suppliers of high-risk inputs, verify provenance and authenticity for each lot, reconcile certificates of analysis against the product, and run a signed label and net quantity check at release. A mock recall and an independent gap assessment will confirm the system works before an inspector tests it.

Conclusion

The CFIA's Food Fraud Annual Report 2024 to 2025 is a roadmap of where the agency is looking and how hard it is prepared to act. The 150,000 kg headline, the 67 percent olive oil result, and the $1.1 million prosecution are not abstractions. They show that authenticity, accurate labelling and honest origin claims are enforced priorities, with consequences that range from relabelling orders to licence loss. The good news is that every weakness the report exposes is preventable with a food fraud vulnerability assessment, disciplined supplier qualification, provenance verification, and a Preventive Control Plan that treats economic adulteration as a real hazard. Businesses that act now will not only avoid enforcement, they will compete more fairly in a market the CFIA is working hard to keep honest.

Sources and references

• CFIA, Food Fraud Annual Report 2024 to 2025
• Government of Canada, News release: CFIA prevents more than 150,000 kg of misrepresented food from being sold in Canada (June 25, 2026)
• CFIA, CFIA's role in combatting food fraud
• CFIA, Food fraud overview
• Justice Laws Canada, Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SOR/2018-108)
• Justice Laws Canada, Safe Food for Canadians Act
• Justice Laws Canada, Food and Drugs Act
• CFIA, Standard Regulatory Response Process
• CFIA, Administrative Monetary Penalties

This article is intended for general informational purposes and reflects CFIA and Government of Canada information as of June 2026. It does not constitute legal advice. For guidance specific to your organization's regulatory situation, contact MFLRC directly.