Reinforcing policies to improve Quebec’s food supply

The renewal of Quebec’s two main food policies is a great opportunity to improve the food offered in grocery stores. (Pexels Photo)

By Policy Options

(Version française disponible ici)

Two-thirds of processed foods purchased in Quebec are high in saturated fat, sugar or sodium. This is the finding of a study by the Food quality observatory at Université Laval’s Institut sur la nutrition et les aliments fonctionnels (INAF), after analyzing 15 categories of processed foods frequently consumed by Quebecers between 2016 and 2022. This finding is particularly worrying given the link between excessive consumption of these nutrients and the development of chronic diseases.

The central role of the food on offer

Food supply is the cornerstone of our food environment. It plays a central role in how people access a healthy and diversified diet. In recent years, packaged foods have accounted for the largest share of the Canadian diet. Improving the nutritional value of foods available in Quebec and the rest of the country is a key step to help Canadians adopt healthier eating habits and reduce the risk of diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity and even certain types of cancer.

Many of the foods frequently found in our grocery baskets are high in saturated fat, sugar or sodium, and would benefit from better nutritional value. For example, ready-to-serve soups and pizzas are the categories with the highest proportion of products with high sodium content, while cookies and granola bars top the list for sugar.

The Observatoire study also highlighted the wide variability of saturated fat, sugar and sodium levels within the same food group. For example, the sodium content of a soup can varies from 45 all the way to 1940 mg – forty times more! – per cup, while the sugar content of cookies can vary from 2 to 27 g for a 30 g portion. There is clearly room for food processors to improve the nutritional quality of many products.

Commendable efforts, but still a long way off

Several policies have been put in place in recent years to improve the nutritional value of food, at both national and provincial levels. However, they don’t seem to do enough to expose Quebecers to environments more conducive to healthy eating.

In Canada, although voluntary sodium reduction targets have been proposed to the agrifood industry since 2012, few significant improvements have been observed. Changes in the food supply are much greater when policies require mandatory targets. This was the case in 2018, for example, with the formal ban on the use of partially hydrogenated oils in Canada, in order to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. Two years after the regulation was passed, no food containing these oils was sold in the country.

With a similar goal in mind, a new policy was launched by Health Canada in 2022 requiring products with high levels of saturated fat, sugar or sodium to carry a nutrition symbol on the front of packaging, starting in January 1, 2026. In addition to making it easier to identify products that contain too many of these nutrients, this could encourage the agrifood industry to change its recipes to avoid the label. Indeed, several countries that have adopted this measure, such as Chile, have seen a reduction in saturated fat, sugar and sodium levels in processed foods.

In terms of provincial policies, Quebec stands out for the broad vision of its Politique gouvernementale de prévention en santé (PGPS) unveiled in 2017. Proposed plans in the policy document touch on various facets of the food environment, many of which are likely to directly influence the quality of the supply. For example, strategies such as targets for saturated fat, sugar, sodium and fibre content in processed foods and a tax on sugary drinks are being considered. On the other hand, the Politique bioalimentaire 2018-2025 – Alimenter notre monde aims to promote access to a supply of nutritious food using an approach based on voluntary collaboration. Stakeholders in the agrifood sector are therefore invited to improve the nutritional value of foods processed in Quebec and to put them forward.

Despite the existence of these policies, Canadian experts specializing in food environments, who have evaluated the measures adopted, notably in Quebec, believe that much work remains to be done. They concluded that policies likely to improve the nutritional composition of the food supply were either non-existent or limited when compared to international best practices.

A chance to improve our policies

Among the most important actions that could create better food environments, two policies offer considerable potential. The first would be to have mandatory definitions for nutritional composition targets for saturated fats and sugar (in addition to sodium) and set up monitoring mechanisms to improve the food supply. The second action would be to tax sugary drinks. This measure would have a greater impact if it was implemented nationally rather than just in Quebec.

Quebec’s two major policies, the PGPS and the Politique bioalimentaire, expire in 2025 and will have to be renewed in the coming months. This is an excellent opportunity for our decision-makers to strengthen our policies, in order to generate concrete changes in the quality of the food offered on our grocery shelves. Our food environment has great potential for improvement, and stronger public policies will help us get there.

This article first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.