Food SafetyJune 2026

3 Canadian Food Recalls That Could Have Been Prevented with Better Traceability

In 2024 alone, the CFIA issued 124 food recall warnings. Three people died from a Listeria outbreak. Multiple businesses lost their licenses. The average food recall costs a company $10 million in direct expenses. But companies that can identify and isolate affected products within 24 hours cut their total recall cost by up to 50%.

Here are three real cases from the last two years, and how proper traceability could have changed the outcome.

Case 1 -- July 2024

Silk Plant-Based Milk Listeria Outbreak

3 deaths, 20 confirmed cases, 15 hospitalizations

What happened: In July 2024, 18 varieties of Silk and Great Value brand plant-based beverages were recalled across Canada due to Listeria monocytogenes contamination. The products were manufactured at a third-party facility in Ontario. People had been getting sick since August 2023 -- nearly a full year before the recall was issued. Three people died. The facility permanently closed.

Danone Canada (Silk's parent company) later settled a national class action lawsuit. The cost: millions in legal fees, settlements, lost revenue, and a permanently shuttered manufacturing facility.

How traceability could have helped

  • ✓Batch-level tracking would have linked every finished product to the specific production run, ingredients, and facility it came from.
  • ✓Backward trace from the first reported illness (August 2023) would have immediately identified the source facility and affected lots -- months before additional people got sick.
  • ✓Forward trace would have shown exactly which retailers and customers received each batch, enabling a targeted recall instead of pulling 18 product lines nationally.

Case 2 -- July 2025

Marini Foods Salmonella Contamination

License suspended, products recalled, 4-month shutdown

What happened: On July 31, 2025, the CFIA suspended the Safe Food for Canadians licence of Marini Foods Ltd. in North York, Ontario. Their salami and cacciatore products were recalled due to Salmonellacontamination. The CFIA cited violations of sections 47(2) and 88 of the SFCR -- specifically, failure to implement and maintain a preventive control plan for hazard management.

The company was shut down for nearly four months. Their licence was reinstated on November 17, 2025, only after CFIA verified corrective actions were in place. Four months of zero revenue, legal costs, and permanent reputational damage.

How traceability could have helped

  • ✓Ingredient-level tracking would have flagged which raw material lots were used in the contaminated batches, isolating the problem to specific supplier shipments.
  • ✓Mock recall drills (required by CFIA) would have tested their ability to trace products before a real contamination event. A 2-minute mock recall would have exposed the gaps.
  • ✓Activity logs tracking daily cleaning, temperature monitoring, and sanitation checks would have caught the contamination source earlier in the production cycle.

Case 3 -- Ongoing 2024-2025

Small Bakery Undeclared Allergen Recalls

Multiple businesses, Class I recalls, potential fatal reactions

What happened: Throughout 2024-2025, multiple small Canadian bakeries issued recalls for undeclared allergens. Madame Labriski recalled The Bomba Rosa Log for undeclared soy, eggs, milk, sesame, nuts, and peanuts. Chatmans Bakery recalled Peanut Butter Balls and Date Squares for undeclared wheat and peanut. Kokkadens Cakes recalled products for undeclared egg. Each one is classified as Class I -- high risk -- because undeclared allergens can kill.

These are small businesses. They don't have compliance departments. They often share equipment, use multiple suppliers, and change recipes without updating labels. One ingredient substitution from a supplier can turn a safe product into a Class I recall.

How traceability could have helped

  • ✓Ingredient tracking tied to each batch would immediately show which allergens are present in every production run, even when suppliers change formulations.
  • ✓Batch-to-label linkage ensures that the label on the package always matches what actually went into that specific batch -- not what was used last month.
  • ✓Forward trace to customers means if you do catch the error, you know exactly who received the affected product and can execute a targeted recall in minutes, not days.

The numbers are clear

$10MAverage cost of a food recall
50%Cost reduction with 24hr trace
124CFIA recalls in 2024 alone

GFSI-benchmarked food safety standards require that mock recalls achieve 100% traceability -- you must account for every unit of the affected batch. If your mock recall only locates 95% of a batch, you have a traceability gap.

The SFCR requires, at minimum, one step back (from whom you received a food) and one step forward (to whom you provided a food). But the businesses above show that without a system to actually execute this, the requirement is just words on paper.

Don't wait for a recall to find your traceability gaps

NutriBoard gives you full traceability -- batch tracking, ingredient tracking, forward and backward product tracing, and instant mock recalls in under 2 minutes. Built for Canadian food producers. Free to start.

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