Both Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) are responsible for food labelling in Canada.
In this section you will learn how to read a food label, and receive information on certain parts of the label, including best before dates and country of origin labelling. For more detailed information on the Nutrition Facts table, ingredient list, and nutrition claims, visit the Healthy Canadians website.
Interactive Tools.
Interactive tool - Understanding a Food Label
The food label is one of the most important tools Canadian Consumers can use to make informed choices about healthy and safe foods.
Interactive tool - Food Label Requirements
This interactive image of a food product label depicts the mandatory information and requirements for certain voluntary information such as claims and brand names.
There has been a lot of interest in recent years about how consumers understand and use the nutrition information on food labels to assist them in making healthier food choices.
However, the food safety components on food labels, such as ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates, as well as cooking and storage instructions, have received less attention. This is despite the fact that this labelling, if followed correctly, plays an important role in reducing the risk of foodborne illness.
It was concerning that only 43% of respondents reported they always/mostly read and complied with cooking instructions and only 56% with storage instructions as these are both important means of reducing the risk of foodborne illness.
