Report a Food Safety or Labelling Concern

In Canada, responsibility for food safety is shared between the federal government and provincial health units or provincial departments.

Consumer complaints should be directed to the correct organization for appropriate follow up.

Restaurant and food service inspections

Depending on where you live, concerns or complaints about dirty restaurants, bad food handling practices or the actions of cooks and food servers are handled by local health authorities or designated provincial departments.

Contact information for restaurant and food service inspections

Retail food locations

Depending on where you live, concerns or complaints about issues like dirty stores, sightings of mice or insects, bad food handling practices or the actions of store staff are handled by local health or authorities or designated provincial departments.

Contact information for retail food inspections

Concerns about the quality of food should normally be directed to the store where the product was purchased. Some example of quality concerns include:

  • Decayed fruits and vegetables
  • Stale or mouldy food
  • Food being sold after a best before date

Food quality or safety

Concerns about the safety of pre-packaged foods, should be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency except in Quebec where the Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation du Québec – (French only) is the lead organization for all consumer concerns.

Some examples of food safety concerns that should be reported include:

  • Suspected food poisoning from a food purchased at a retail store
  • Allergic reactions to food where ingredients may not be listed
  • Recalled food products being sold

Prepackaged food labelling

Concerns about the labelling of prepackaged foods, should be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency except in Quebec where the Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation du Québec – (French only) is the lead organization for all consumer concerns.

Before reporting a labelling concern, you are encouraged to review the following fact sheets covering key labelling issues.