Health Canada Nutritional Labeling Regulation & Implementation Phases

On December 14, 2016, Health Canada published revisions to nutrition labeling, food color requirements, and the list of ingredients of the Food and Drug Regulations. The revisions intended to help Canadians easily understand the nutritional facts and list of ingredients to make informed choices. The major revisions include the following:

• New requirements for legibility of the list of ingredients
• Changes to the information in the Nutrition Facts table (NFt)
• Grouping of sugars in the list of ingredients
• Removal of the certification requirement for synthetic colors
• New requirements for declaration of food colors
• Incorporation by reference of daily values, reference amounts, serving sizes, templates for the Nutrition Facts table (NFt) formats, and food color specifications

DYK? The transition period to meet the labeling requirements ended on December 14, 2021. Until December 14, 2022, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will be focusing on compliance promotion. Later, the CFIA will apply enforcement discretion in cases of non-compliance. Therefore, organizations must either comply or provide a detailed plan on how to comply with the regulations at the earliest possible date, which must be on or before December 14, 2023. Also, the CFIA has the authority to act if there is inaccurate, false, or misleading labeling information.

Implementation Phase

In a nutshell, organizations must comply with the new nutritional labeling provisions from December 14, 2022. Products manufactured in Canada, imported from other countries, or packed at retail before this date can remain in the warehouse and continue to be sold on store shelves. Would you like to explore the compliance strategies for nutritional labeling? Get in touch with our experts at Freyr to avoid Regulatory roadblocks.