November 6, 2006

Honourable Tony Clement
Minister of Health
Minister’s Office – Health Canada
Brooke Claxton Building , Tunney’s Pasture
Postal Locator:  0906C
Ottawa , Ontario , Canada
K1A 0K9

Dear Minister:

Re:  VOIC (Vegetable Oil Industry of Canada ) and Trans Fat Task Force Report – TRANSforming the Food Supply  

VOIC (Vegetable Oil Industry of Canada) is an industry advocacy group representing 75,000 oilseed growers across Canada , oilseed processors and suppliers of fats and oils to the food industry, and makers of oilseed-based food products such as margarine, cooking oil, salad dressing, mayonnaise and dessert toppings.  Members include the Canadian Canola Growers Association, the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association, Archer Daniel Midland Agri-industries, Bunge Canada, Canbra Foods, Cargill Limited, AarhusKarlshamn US and Canada , Loders Croklaan, Unilever Canada and Rich Products Corporation.  

VOIC has a primary concern for the health of Canadians.  The ability of business to make products that improve the health of Canadians is a necessary component to achieving these improvements in public health.  

We wish to advise you of initiatives VOIC members have made in reducing trans fat in their products and their contribution to the overall goal of reducing trans fat in the Canadian diet.  

We would also like to advise you of some issues arising from the recommendations of the Health Canada Trans Fat Task Force that require the government’s attention.  

Regarding VOIC member initiatives, Rich Products of Canada, makers of Rich’s Whip® Topping™ for instance, has reformulated more than 500 products, mostly targeted for the food service industry, to remove trans fat.  Products include icings, fillings and mixes, beverages, bagels, partially baked breads and rolls, pizza dough, bread and roll dough and cookies.  

Unilever Canada was a retail pioneer in trans free margarines with Becel® which was introduced to Canadians over 25 years ago.  More recently, all Unilever retail tub margarines are virtually trans free.  Unilever has also reduced trans fat in all of its savoury line of products, including Knorr & Lipton branded soups.  Furthermore Unilever Foodsolutions offers the Canadian foodservice and food manufacturing industries a comprehensive range of virtually trans free margarines, shortenings, emulsified shortenings, frying oils an pastry roll-ins.

VOIC oilseed processor members, members of the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association (COPA), have also taken leadership on the trans fat issue.

Canbra Foods has developed a trans free retail margarine, a trans fat free griddle fry product, trans fat free popping/topping products, non-hydrogenated margarine and shortening products for baking applications and non-hydrogenated margarine for food service applications.  Canbra has also significantly increased production of a high oleic/low linolenic trans fat free frying oil that replaces deep frying shortenings without giving up on functionality.

Archer Daniel Midland (ADM) has pioneered the development and production of “enzyme interesterified” shortening and margarine products minimizing trans isomer formation.  Enzymatic interesterified shortenings and margarines utilizing soybean oil and fully hydrogenated soybean oil contain stearic acid as the major saturated fatty acid, along with considerable amounts of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids.  Additionally, each product in the ADM NovaLipid line of fats and oils is specifically formulated to contain little or no trans fat.

Bunge Oils Canada has provided the Canadian food industry with many different new products that have allowed both large and small companies involved with the food service, bakery and margarine businesses to completely remove trans fats from hydrogenation from their finished products.

Cargill Specialty Canola Oils develops, produces and markets high-performance canola oils and solid shortenings that deliver zero trans and low saturate solutions to the food industry.  Its business is backed by an intellectual property position in the genetic engineering of canola, and by a leading team of molecular biologists specializing in oil modification.  It develops proprietary planting seed, contracts with growers in Canada and crushes and refines canola into premium oils sold to food processors, food service and inedible uses. High oleic sunflower oil is also available.

In addition, new VOIC member AarhusKarlshamn (AAK) produces a complete line of highly functional, no trans, non-hydrogenated fats offered under its Cisao, Cebes, and EsSence brands.  Offerings include trans free bakery shortenings, spray oils, frying oils, margarine hardstocks, confectionery coatings and filling fats.  EsSence trans free fats are unique in that they are relatively low in saturated fat as well.  AAK has also introduced a patent pending, non-hydrogenated, trans free puff pastry roll-in shortening.  

Loders Croklaan – another new VOIC member – produces a wide variety of trans-free fats and oils for use in various applications such as:  bakery and frying shortenings, compound coatings, confectionery, dairy-based products, caramels, cookie fillings, crackers and icings.  The trans free products, sold under the SansTrans and Freedom Series brands, are all non-hydrogenated and based on palm or palm kernel oils which have been publicly endorsed as a reasonable, trans free alternative to partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.  

We believe the Health Canada Trans Fat Task Force, comprised of government, non-governmental organizations, academia and industry – including VOIC – made considerable progress in understanding the trans fat issue including the source, health impacts and the opportunities and challenges associated with alternatives to partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.  

VOIC is supportive of the overall direction of the Task Force’s final recommendations.  However, during the course of the Task Force’s discussion, it became clear that further work must be completed before regulation can be contemplated and enacted.  This work, which as a matter of Government of Canada standard practice, will be conducted through the regulatory impact analysis, and we believe, should focus on:  

• The degree to which alternatives to trans fat could lead to an increase in Canadians’ consumption of saturated fat, derived primarily from animal-based products such as dairy and beef.  Certain saturated fatty acids, like trans fatty acids, are known for increasing “LDL” cholesterol, the primary biomarker for coronary heart disease risk. 
• The level and types of trans fatty acids found in ruminant sources, that is meat and dairy (between 2% and 5% and as high as 8% in the case of lamb), and their potential health significance needs to be better understood.  Currently, the Task Force is recommending that the 5% limit would not apply to food products where the trans fat sources are exclusively from meat or dairy.  Yet, as Health Canada notes:  “To date only a few studies have attempted to differentiate between the effects on coronary heart disease risk of industrially produced and naturally occurring trans fats and the data are too limited to be conclusive.” (p.24) Unfortunately, the Task Force’s mandate, established by the House of Commons, did not allow it to sufficiently understand the potential health significance of naturally-occurring trans fat.

For the reasons above, VOIC is concerned about the report’s recommendation to exclude combination foods where the trans fat sources are exclusively from meat and dairy.  We are concerned that a maker, say of a meat pie, might substitute a low trans fat vegetable fat used to make a pastry crust with an animal-based fat such as butter or lard in order to qualify as “exclusively meat or dairy” and thereby avoid the 5% limit set for all other finished foods.  

VOIC also believes that the impact on the Canadian oilseed grower of canola and soybeans and the Canadian oilseed processor needs to be better understood particularly if regulation were to drive Canadian food makers to substitute partially-hydrogenated oils with saturated fat.  

In addition, we strongly believe that the potential for a Canadian regulation limiting trans fat needs to be better understood in the context of Canada ’s trade obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization.  The Task Force did not have the international trade expertise to make this evaluation.  

Canadian food and agricultural products are largely traded within a global context.  Imported products, along with domestically produced food products will be subject to any regulatory limit on trans fat established by the Canadian government.  It is important to recognize that imported products, which may not meet the Canadian regulation but are traded broadly in other jurisdictions, will have to be reformulated for the relatively small Canadian market.  There will be costs associated with this reformulation and in some cases an exporter may choose to forego the Canadian market entirely due to the reformulation costs.  

It is also important to recognize that a regulatory limit on trans fat will place additional inspection, analytical and enforcement pressures on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure that any imported product complies with the regulation.  Canadian makers of food products will find it unacceptable if, on the one hand, they are complying with regulation and competitive imported products are not sufficiently inspected and analyzed to ensure compliance with the regulation.  

VOIC emphasizes the need for the Government of Canada to fully appreciate the enforcement demands of any regulation established and ensure that such enforcement is practical and will be routinely and fairly applied so that domestic food makers are not placed at a competitive disadvantage to foreign producers.  

We offer our thoughts regarding some ongoing concerns in the spirit of working with governments to reduce trans fat in the Canadian diet in the interests of consumers.  We understand the report is before the Standing Committee on Health and are asking the Committee to consider the content of this letter – both industry progress in reducing trans and our ongoing concerns – as part of its deliberations.  

We were pleased to be part of the Trans Fat Task Force and if VOIC can be of further assistance to the Committee or officials as this policy development process moves forward, please contact us.  

Yours sincerely,

Sean McPhee
President

416-214-1232

cc.    Hon. Rob Merrifield, Chair of the Standing Committee on Health
Carmen DePape, Clerk of the Committee