As soon as it began, the Great Marmite War of 2014 was over.
Except uncertainty still reigns. Some Vancouver Island shops were selling the British, um, delicacy Monday but others had pulled it off the shelves. Ditto for Bovril, Ovaltine, Lucozade, Penguin chocolate bars and Irn-Bru, the Scottish pop familiar to readers of Ian Rankin crime novels.
Underneath this tempest in a teacup is a more serious question: Does Ottawa have the ability to protect Canadians from truly dodgy foreign food?
But let’s back up.
This started when retailer Brit Foods, with shops in Parksville, Saskatoon and Edmonton, said the Canada Food Inspection Agency had forced it to stop selling imported edibles including Marmite, a yeast-based spread beloved by Britons and baffling to everyone else.
The British news media were indignant, getting themselves worked up as only the British media can. “In Canada it is perfectly legal to buy firearms and bullets,” the Independent thundered. “But Marmite and Irn-Bru are apparently a threat to the nation’s health.”
(This was the same week that the U.K. media ripped the Canadian government for ordering that an impounded Russian cruise ship be left drifting at sea after breaking its tow line. “Ghost ship carrying cannibal rats could be heading for Britain” was the Telegraph’s headline over a story that predicted the vessel, crawling with starving rodents, would eventually hit the beach in Ireland, Scotland or Cornwall.)
On Saturday — Robbie Burns Day, by coincidence — the CFIA issued a statement: “Irn-Bru and Marmite are not banned for sale in Canada. These products have been available on Canadian store shelves for more than a decade and will continue to be sold in stores across Canada.”
But there’s a wrinkle: the Canadian versions of these products have slightly different ingredients. The British Marmite has added vitamins Ottawa doesn’t like, Irn-Bru has a colouring agent not allowed here, and so on. CFIA said the Brit Foods-bound shipment it stopped contained foods with the British, not Canadian, ingredients.
Merchants remain unsettled. Brit Foods’ Tony Badger declined to comment Monday other than to say the company wanted to be treated in the same way as 25 supermarkets in B.C. and 200 other British shops across Canada.
In Victoria, where Marmite and Irn-Bru sell like poutine in Quebec, both the British Candy Shoppe and English Sweet Shop were keeping their shelves clear of the offending products for fear of getting in trouble. Fernwood’s Aubergine Specialty Foods, on the other hand, had simply sold out of Marmite, panicked buyers scooping the supply.
Aubergine owner Leon Zetler says the problem is rooted in a lack of resources at the CFIA. The food-inspection agency can’t afford to retest imported foods, so sometimes bases its regulations on out-of-date product information.
He is echoed by Ontario MP Malcolm Allen, the federal NDP’s agriculture critic. “The challenge for CFIA is and will continue to be proper resourcing,” says Allen — who is, by the way, a big fan of Irn-Bru. “I grew up in Glasgow. I like the stuff,” he said, on the phone from Ottawa.
Let’s set aside for a moment the quasi-comical fuss over the Irn-Bru, Ovaltine and whatnot. (Though when your diet includes tripe, blood pudding, haggis and spotted dick, should Ottawa really get that worked up over too many vitamins in your Marmite?)
The larger issue is whether the CFIA has the capacity to keep Canadians safe from tainted food from home and abroad. Allen sat on a parliamentary subcommittee on food safety after the domestic listeriosis outbreak that killed 22 people in 2008. He backed government-appointed investigator Sheila Weatherill’s call for an audit of the resources CFIA has and needs to do its job. Instead, he said, Ottawa conducted a financial review.
The fewer people we have checking the food coming into the country, the greater the chance food of uncertain provenance will slip in, Allen says. He worries that CFIA agents have been pulled off the borders; Canadian Border Services Agency agents call in the CFIA if they suspect something is wrong, but they lack the expertise to know what to look for.
The CFIA, on the other hand, describes Canada’s risk-based import control system as “robust” and comparable to that of other developed countries. It says the year-old Safe Food For Canadians Act has clearer rules and has provisions to hold importers accountable for the safety of their food.
Meanwhile, the British remain unappeased. A Scottish politician quoted in today’s Scotsman newspaper is threatening retaliation: “We need to look into banning Justin Bieber and Céline Dion here in Europe — between them they’ve produced more sugary schmaltz than Irn-Bru ever has.”
