“Food Insecurity”

A CBC News secret shopping investigation has uncovered — once again — several Loblaw-owned and Sobeys-affiliated stores overcharging for underweight meat, despite claims last year the grocery giants had taken steps to rectify the problem.

“People are getting ripped off,” said Terri Lee, a former inspector with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Lee, who spent 24 years with the federal food regulator before retiring in 2021, estimates misweighed meat costs Canadian shoppers millions of dollars annually.

A recent investigation has shaken one of Quebec’s most iconic industries.

Authorities are examining allegations that maple syrup sold in grocery stores —linked to a Quebec producer — may have been adulterated with cheaper sugars while still being marketed as pure.

Products have been pulled, regulators are involved and Canadians are left asking a familiar question: How did this go unnoticed?

A Canadian radio reporter thought the “pure maple syrup” he’d just bought tasted weird so he followed his hunch.

He took it for testing to a food lab, which determined the syrup was half cane sugar.

The maple farmer who distributed the doctored syrup is now a potential target of a class-action lawsuit from consumers across Canada.

"Food fraud is a $50 billion problem in North America. We’ve all been victims at least once—through fraud, counterfeiting, mislabeling, adulteration, you name it. And without the media, we wouldn’t know about the maple syrup scandal unfolding right now."

More about this on our… pic.twitter.com/mH02duFrSv

— The Food Professor (@FoodProfessor) April 10, 2026

h/t handy n handsome

An international expert in global food security is visiting Canada this week to urge officials to continue investing in agriculture, warning that the continued Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has upended supply chains in the middle of planting season in many countries.

Ismahane Elouafi, the executive managing director of the world’s largest publicly funded agricultural research network, CGIAR, said the closing of the strait is driving up the prices of oil and fertilizer, which means less productivity, higher costs for farmers and rising food prices − economic pain that will be felt a few weeks from now.

A recent investigation has shaken one of Quebec’s most iconic industries. Authorities are examining allegations that maple syrup sold in grocery stores—linked to a Quebec producer—may have been adulterated with cheaper sugars while still being marketed as “pure.” Products have been pulled, regulators are involved, and once again, Canadians are left asking a familiar question: how did this go unnoticed?

Maple syrup is not just another product. In Quebec, it is culture, identity, and economic pride. But this case isn’t really about syrup.