Peppers mislabelled, produce dealer fined

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

A Leamington-area produce dealer who tried to pass Mexican greenhouse peppers off as Canadian products was convicted in a Windsor court last month.

Perry Impens was fined $6,900 after pleading guilty in the Ontario Court of Justice to two counts of contravening a section of the Food and Drugs Act. The section relates to labelling and selling misrepresented produce, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency says in an Oct. 21 press release. Impens was convicted on Oct. 2.

George Gilvesy, general manager of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, says Impens wasn’t licensed by the greenhouse vegetable growers as a grower, marketer or packer. Impens was “not under our jurisdiction and we’re quite pleased CFIA was able to conduct an investigation and see it to the end to find this man guilty.”

The greenhouse growers’ organization doesn’t “condone this type of activity and we look at improving the ethics within the sector,” he adds, noting they’ve been doing a lot of work with other members in the sector on fair and ethical trading practices.

CFIA inspectors were doing a routine inspection in January 2012 at the Ontario Food Terminal in Toronto when they saw greenhouse peppers for sale represented as product of Canada during a time of year when Canadian greenhouse peppers aren’t usually available.

As part of its investigation, CFIA learned Impens bought Mexican peppers from an importer, removed the Mexican stickers and then sold them as Canadian product to another dealer.

CFIA says in its release fraudulently labelling food deceives consumers and compromises traceability, which is very important if there’s a food safety emergency.

Gilvesy says the greenhouse growers’ organization doesn’t do its own active investigations but if they are told someone is misrepresenting greenhouse products they will look into it. BF