The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has released new import requirements for all imported romaine lettuce originating in the United States between Sept. 30 and Dec. 31, 2021.

CFIA is implementing temporary Safe Food for Canadians (SFC) license conditions during this period to decrease the risk associated with E. coli in romaine lettuce from the geographical area identified by U.S. authorities as to the source of outbreaks in recent years.

Starting Sept. 30, importers of romaine lettuce and products containing romaine lettuce from the U.S. must:

A key change from last year’s revisions is two sampling options instead of one. Sampling can be conducted on finished product or at pre-harvest level, and Western Growers Appendix C is listed as a resource on how to carry out pre-harvest tissue sampling. Click here to see the current version of Appendix C.

The complete details on the SFC license conditions and other existing import requirements are outlined on the CFIA website. These temporary SFC license conditions are in addition to other already existing import requirements, which can be found here.

For a Q&A sheet on Canada import requirements for U.S. romaine lettuce, click here.

[De Ann Davis is senior vice president of science for Western Growers.]

Source: Western Growers, which is solely responsible for the information provided and is wholly owned by the source. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any of the content contained in this information asset.