OTTAWA — A large majority of imported foods tested by government inspectors in the last three years contained inaccurate nutritional information or misleading health claims, newly released statistics show.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency's "importers at risk" program targets a broad range of manufactured foods that haven't been inspected for some time or are suspected to have compliance problems. The results, obtained by Postmedia News, show a consistently high percentage of foods with labelling problems — meaning the items were "non-compliant for quality."

Examples include rye bread lacking rye, wing steak labelled as a T-bone, and a "no preservatives" claim on a product containing a preservative.

In 2008-09, CFIA tested 285 samples and found a 75 per cent non-compliance rate in the quality category, according to data released under access to information legislation.

The following year, the non-compliance rate for quality was 74 per cent and rose to 84 per cent in 2010-11, the agency says.

Reasons for failing the compliance test include: non-compliant nutritional claims, non-permitted health claims, inaccurate declarations in the Nutrition Facts Table, the absence of a required component or presence of a prohibited ingredient, not meeting the declared grade, or failing to meet claims or implied expectations.

The importers at risk program includes manufactured food imports that are subject to the Food and Drugs Act but not to other Federal Trade and Commerce Acts. These foods include grain-based products such as breads, biscuits, pastas and cereals, most beverages, confectionary, snack foods, oils, seasonings, condiments, infant formulas, and all retail prepared food.

These dismal test results in 2009-10 and 2010-11 came after CFIA flagged low compliance rates on the quality and labelling of imported commodities as an "ever present issue."

The agency's internal report summarizing the 2008-09 results, dated November 2009, said resources "are needed in order to do a detailed analysis of the results of the inspections, including identifying trends in the types of products, countries of origin, type and size of importers, etc. in order to focus resources on these problem areas to achieve increased compliance."

CFIA confirmed in a statement to Postmedia News that "this detailed analysis has not been completed to date," but emphasized the agency uses a risk-based approach to target and allocate inspection resources to areas of greatest risk.

Toronto-based nutritionist Theresa Albert, who authored Ace Your Health: 52 Ways to Stack Your Deck, said these results only reinforce perceptions about imported foods.

"Most people just want to get the food on the table, and I think we as Canadians do feel that we deserve to believe the information that's on the package," said Albert. "Already, we're nervous about importers."

She added: "I think people read them assuming that there is more policing of that information than there is."

The newly released records about CFIA's fair labelling projects also indicate the scope of the agency's targeted "point-of-entry inspections" program is "very limited in scope and implemented only in areas as the need arises." This includes referrals from the Canada Border Services Agency.

For example, in 2008, 11 inspections were conducted as part of this program, and all samples checked for quality parameters were found to be non-compliant.

The following year, 22 inspections were conducted, and CFIA found a quality compliance rate of two per cent. Last year, the agency conducted 33 inspections, and determined that seven per cent of the samples complied with CFIA's quality parameters.

CFIA said that these fair labelling projects for manufactured foods are designed to target problem areas, so findings of low compliance rates "are not an indication of the regulatory compliance of this sector as a whole." The agency also said it follows up with companies until compliance is achieved.

sschmidt@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/SarahSchmidtPN