We recently had a run in with the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency)  apperently someone had a gluten reaction to one of our breads that was purchased at one of our larger retailers.  Right away red flags went up, the retailer recalled all our product and the CFIA opened an investigation.  A CFIA inspector came to our premisis and conducted an inspection, had us send out some samples of our bread mixes to get gluten tested, asked us to make a few changes to our production, and our labels.  CFIA also obtained samples for the retailer to send to ottawa for gluten testing.

As it turns out Heath Canada has  no written standard for gluten particles in a product PPM (parts per million) in fact the CFIA is supposed to inforce rules set out by Health Canada, and in this case had no rule to inforce, so started making up their own.  The Celiac Society uses 20 PPM as a guide line for the foods they eat, you would think that is a group of celiacs are fine using this standard so should the government as this is really who gluten free products are aimed for.  Let me contiue by going on record that the inspector at the CFIA i was dealing with was great, he didn't come in flexing his muscles, very friendly and fair, but he himself didn't have any written rule to follow so was making us adhere to a gluten PPM of 5, 5 PPM, 5 particles of gluten in 1,000,000 partices of gluten free flour, anything above that would be deemed contaminated and could not be called gluten free, even though the Celiac Society is fine with 20PPM.

So, our test restults came back at 5PPM which was great, and the samples that were sent to Ottawa also came at 5PPM so its business as usual around here, inspection are over, cases are closed and our product was not contaminated.  This experience started to make me think though, there has to be some kind of standard across the board, some kind of Gluten Free Baking association that new companies have to regester with before opening shop.  A place where standard information is available perhaps a new gluten free bakery should have to follow the same testing procedures.  The Gluten Free Alliance, we all band to together for the better good.  

In the mean time, the CFIA should be out there knocking on other gluten free production facilities, making sure that they are all following the same rules and regulations, and if not penalties, shut downs and fines should be in place.  Good things came out of this though, it helped make us compliant, brought our labeling up to date, and forced us to gluten test all new lot numbers that come into our factory, Health Canada is also making a ruling very soon because of this, and rumor has it the written standard will be 20PPM

Barry Horn