Marilyn Tower, owner of Abbotsford’s Tower Foods, with some of the products seized from Vancouver’s Home Grow-In Grocer by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency due to alleged inadequate labelling.

Credit: Doug Shanks

NEWS: Grocer’s stock seized

By Jessica Barrett

The Home Grow-In Grocer is a throwback to the corner stores and country markets of a vanished yesteryear. As twilight approached on a recent weekday evening, shoppers propped their bikes — unlocked — against the benches out front and popped in for artisan treats such as locally produced gelato and fresh-baked cookies. On the sidewalk, neighbours mingled amidst a backdrop of Fraser Valley and Okanagan produce displayed in rustic baskets.

It’s a real community store, the kind of place where, if you’ve forgotten your wallet, owner Deb Reynolds will let you settle up next time you’re in. “It’s a little thing called trust,” she said to an incredulous shopper who was extended this courtesy.

You might think this sort of quaint scene could only play out in a small town, but this is the middle of Vancouver, at Columbia Street at 18th Avenue. Reynolds has been making a go of building a business based on the kind of 100-mile-diet ethos that has seen many in Vancouver looking for more opportunities to buy and eat local.

There have been many hiccups during Home Grow-In’s 14 months in business, but none as significant as the day, about five weeks ago, when Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) inspectors showed up at the store and pulled $20,000 in goods off the shelves.

The reason? Incorrect labelling.

“They were here for about six hours, taking pictures and writing down things. And what it came out to, at the end, I had seven pages [written up] for non-bilingual labelling,” says Reynolds. “And I said to them... ‘I’m glad that it’s taken two of you to tell me that the only thing wrong with my suppliers’ food is [labelling].’”

According to the CFIA, Reynolds’s store wasn’t the target of their inspection. Rather, it was one of her suppliers, Abbotsford’s Birchwood Dairy. “The store was identified as being the only store in Vancouver that carried the brand of yogurt that we are having issues with,” says CFIA spokesperson Ken Randa, “and so the inspectors went there to deal with the yogurt, and it was made very clear during the inspection that 21 packages of yogurt [could be] returned to the supplier.”

But Reynolds says the inspection went further, with salad dressing, honey, granola, even a bread product found in other stores in the city, being pulled from the shelves. Some products are still barred from the store. “Some of the Birchwood Dairy, I still can’t carry some of their yogurts and cheeses because it doesn’t have the word ‘cheese’ [on the label],” she says.

Although the CFIA’s Randa says the food could be returned to the producer for a refund, Reynolds says the financial loss is hers, since many of her suppliers aren’t in a position to offer a credit. “In fact, my staff had to wait to get paid because I couldn’t afford to pay them because we weren’t able to sell the stuff,” she says.

At the same time, many of the suppliers targeted by the CFIA for labelling infractions are baffled. Most, like Marilyn Tower of Abbotsford’s Tower Foods, say they have already been independently inspected by the agency. Tower’s lines of salad dressings and salsas have professionally produced labels with bilingual translation. “I even paid for a translator to make sure the French was correct,” she says. Yet her products were removed from Home Grow-In’s shelves, according to Reynolds.

John Sladen, of the Keremeos, B.C.-based Orchard Blossom Honey, was shocked that his products were among those pulled, since he’s been registered with Agriculture Canada for decades and is inspected yearly by the CFIA. “They have not, in 30 years, said anything to me about my labels,” he says.

Neither Sladen nor Tower have been contacted by the CFIA since the inspection about what, if anything, is wrong with their labels.

Targeting local producers for language infractions when imported products consistently flood into the country with neither official language on their labels is an unfair practise, according to Candice Appleby of the Small Scale Food Processors Association, an organization representing independent companies across the country. “It’s a very unfair environment for a small business,” she says, noting her organization has been pushing the CFIA to shift its resources to concentrate on checking imported, rather than local, products.

But Randa says the CFIA’s rules are evenly applied to everyone. “We can’t be everywhere at once,” he says.

As for Reynolds, while she appreciates the CFIA’s role in ensuring a safe food supply in Canada, the inspection has changed the way she does business. “Now it’s gotten to the point that anything that comes through the door, the first thing I’m doing is checking to see if it’s got bilingual labelling on it, and if not, I’m refusing it.”

reporter@westender.com