The federal government on May 1 announced “modernized” beer standards under Canada’s Food and Drug Regulations (FDR) — the rules laying out the requirements to be met by a product labelled, packaged, sold and advertised as beer in Canada.

The FDR updates are expected to allow brewers to “develop new products by using new ingredients and flavouring preparations while maintaining the integrity of beer,” the government said in a release, while offering more “clarity on what constitutes standardized beer.”

For instance, the new rules clarify the term “carbohydrate” and clarify that herbs and spices are allowed. Apart from cereal grains and flavouring preparations, the rules also allow for addition of “honey, maple syrup, fruit, fruit juice or any other source of carbohydrates.”

The updated rules also remove listed processing aids from the beer standard, making it more consistent with most of the 300-plus food standards covered in the FDR which don’t list processing aids, such as antifoaming agents used during manufacturing.

“A modernized beer standard allows Canadian brewers to develop a new range of products that meet the tastes of our consumers,” Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in the government’s release.

But the FDR will now also require beer labels to declare food allergens, gluten sources and/or added sulphites. Flavouring preparations will also have to be declared, such as, say, “beer with blueberry flavour.”

Such a declaration must either be included in the list of ingredients — which, as with all standardized alcoholic beverages, is voluntary for beer — or be added as a statement, such as, say, “Contains: Sulphites.”

Those requirements “will give consumers assurance that the beer they drink will not pose a risk to their health because of a food allergy or food sensitivity,” Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor said in the same release.

The updates also set a limit of four per cent residual sugar — that is, the sugars left in the product after fermentation is completed. The limit is meant to “distinguish standardized beer from sweeter malt-based beverages.”

‘Distinct’

The updated standard is also expected to reduce “duplication” in the FDR as it removes the standard for ale, stout, porter and malt liquor — which was “virtually identical” to the standard for beer — to have just one standard for all beer styles and types.

The changes to the FDR must be applied starting Dec. 14, 2022. Until then, the government said, Canadian brewers and beer importers “must follow either the previous or the new requirements.”

The requirements for compositional standards under the FDR only apply on products traded interprovincially or imported into Canada.

The new rules “will ensure beer is treated as distinct from other beverage alcohol categories for decades to come,” Luke Harford, president of trade association Beer Canada, said in the sam release. “We are pleased to see that the changes permit the use of new ingredients and recognize beer as a beverage alcohol product that is low in sugars.”

According to the government’s impact analysis statement, the FDR’s beer standards “had not previously undergone a major amendment for at least 30 years” while the industry “had recently been seeking the use of more ingredients than was permitted by the compositional standard.”

Some small craft breweries, the government said, “may experience difficulty in complying with the requirements because of limited financial resources.”

Also, the government granted, some products “may not meet the modernized beer standard and will have to be sold as unstandardized alcoholic beverages and not be represented as beer.”

Also, the government said, the FDR updates could potentially impact trade with other countries that don’t have the same beer compositional standard. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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At this time of year, it can be a cold trip, but even in the summer when Country Guide first visited, it can feel a long way from the great metropolitan areas where the bulk of Canada’s consumers live.

Even so, it’s a trend in those cities — and all across the country — that Dallaire and Bouchard are betting their business future on, because they’ve set an objective of making a name for themselves in growing and processing gluten-free grains.

But how do you do that?

Canada’s gluten-free is a niche market, as these farmers are aware, but it is a niche that is showing a lot of strength, with underpinnings that seem sound.

Only one per cent of Canadians suffer Celiac disease, an inherited auto-immune condition in which eating gluten, a storage protein found in wheat and other grains, causes severe damage to the small intestine where nutrients are absorbed.

However, that still makes 350,000 potential customers.

Nor is that all. According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada studies, about one-third of Canadians or 10 million people are looking for gluten-free products, the majority believing that gluten-free food is better for their health.

For 2018, the worldwide gluten-free market was projected to be US$6.3 billion. There’s nothing small about that, but in order to get on board, a decision had to be made from the start at the Tournevent’s Farm. “To avoid potential cross contamination with gluten we decided not to grow wheat, but also to not grow other grains with gluten content such as rye, barley or triticale,” says Dallaire.

Gluten-sensitive people are so intolerant to the protein that even seven grains of wheat per tonne of harvested grain, or six or seven wheat heads per hectare are too much.

This requires a very strict production specification for the producers, as well as a rigorous traceability system from the farm to the store shelf.

Dallaire, now 43 years old, is a former computer teacher at CÉGEP de Chicoutimi who quit his secure job to take over the family farm in 2014. At the time his father, Jacques, had sold his dairy quota to embrace organic hemp cultivation. He had flair.

Today, edible hemp seeds represent 50 per cent of the farm income, and it has paid off. In 2017, the price hit $4,000 per tonne due to a booming demand.

Dallaire also grows organic buckwheat, flaxseed, canola, camelina, peas, lentils and garlic.

A gluten-free production chain

“Our farm is part of a gluten-free production chain,” says Dallaire. As such, he works closely with 10 other producers in his area. The idea is to secure a pool of approximately 3,000 hectares of organic gluten-free grains by offering what is effectively a regional service centre.

In the first phase of their 2014 business plan, the couple invested $500,000 to build a grain screening and cleaning facility. The reason? “The buyers want clean grain,” says Dallaire.

Next, the grain screening centre was followed two years later in 2016 by another investment of $150,000 in an optical grain sorter, “because when we harvest organic crops, we also harvest weeds,” says Dallaire.

The machine’s magic eye classifies the size and the colour of the grains at an incredible speed.

Others are watching too. The farm’s new sorter was named the Regional Strategic Investment of 2017 by La table agroalimentaire du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, a promotional business organization.

And it isn’t only farmers. Processors are lining up as well. Among the farm’s clients are Les Aliments Trigone and Moulin A. Coutu, two companies that have been pioneers in the development of gluten-free food products in the province.

Organic edible oil

“We want to process and add value to our regional crops by producing a unique organic edible oil,” says Bouchard, CEO of Tournevent’s Farm and a graduate in science and food technology at Laval University (2003).

The idea came after a few visits with Dallaire in France where the couple took a course in on-farm processing and value-adding taught by the University of Bordeaux.

Again, the scale of the business is surprising. In France today, there are as many edible oil processors as there are cheesemakers.

This is where the third part of their business plan comes in. The couple have recently invested in a $400,000 vegetable oil press. Among the star products in development is an organic canola oil.

The crop itself represents an agronomic challenge in the field as most of the canola which is grown in Western Canada is genetically modified (GM). “We found a producer in the Prairies who has kept non-GM original seeds,” says Dallaire who selects his fields to avoid any potential contamination with his neighbours who grow GM canola.

The other challenge is to extract the canola oil mechanically without using chemical solvents such as those used to produce commercial canola oil.

“We will produce mechanically a single-press canola oil with all its taste and flavour, a bit like olive oil,” says Bouchard.

So far so good. Bouchard has also worked on an edible hemp oil, which has “a very specific nutty flavour and which is ideally balanced for human consumption in omega-3, -9 and vitamin E.”

Meanwhile, Dallaire is expecting a decision from Health Canada to approve the use of hemp meal in animal production. A green light would mean a new market for their farm.

The couple also bet on camelina edible oil, which tastes a bit like sesame oil and which is highly tolerant to heat.

Dallaire and Bouchard intend to market their organic edible oil under the AgroBoréal trademark. AgroBoréal does the promotion of products only grown in Lac Saint-Jean and links its name to Canada’s northern woodlands.

“A big Quebec processor is buying some of its organic oil partly from China and Paraguay,” Dallaire explains, and it’s clear where he is focusing his energy. “For us, it is imperative they buy locally.”

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General Mills announced last week it will remove the “gluten-free” claim from Cheerios sold in Canada starting in January, though it said its products still comply with gluten-free standards in both Canada and the U.S.

“Each serving of Cheerios products in Canada are gluten free, as defined by the current regulatory standard of containing less than 20 (parts per million) of gluten,” the company said on its website.

The company said it will “voluntarily remove the gluten-free label from our Cheerios products in Canada until Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) publish a consistent testing protocol for products containing oats.”

The company emphasized its product is not changing, “just the label on the box,” and that it plans to again label Cheerios products in Canada as gluten-free “once consensus is reached on a consistent testing protocol.”

The Canadian Celiac Association, which represents people with celiac disease — a medical condition in which exposure to gluten can damage the absorptive surface of the small intestine — on Thursday hailed General Mills’ decision.

However, the CCA noted, it has “objected” to General Mills’ gluten-free claim for Cheerios since August last year — and has since “strongly recommended” that people with celiac disease not consume Cheerios products.

“Based on the advice of the members of our professional advisory council (PAC) and other professionals working in the field, we believe that there is not adequate evidence to support the current gluten-free claim,” CCA executive director Melissa Secord said in a release.

The CCA noted it has received a grant from Agriculture and Agri-food Canada to examine the scope of gluten contamination in oats, pulses and other grains grown in Canada.

The association said its study also aims to determine where such contamination occurs as grains are processed, such as in the field, at harvest, in transport or in processing. The CCA said it expects that project to be completed in March.

In regular commercial oats, cross-contamination with gluten-containing grains “can occur at any point in the production chain, as they are typically grown, harvested, transported, stored, milled or packaged in close proximity with other cereal grains, under practices accepted by Canadian regulations,” according to Agriculture and Agri-food Canada.

Another concern, AAFC said, has been that the avenin protein in oats is believed to trigger a similar reaction in some people’s small intestines as from wheat, rye and barley.

“Pure” oats, produced from dedicated fields and equipment, have been developed in Canada, under controlled conditions to eliminate cross-contamination with other cereal grains, the department said, but Canadian regulations do not distinguish between regular and “pure” oats.

The department cites the CCA as indicating adults with celiac disease can safely consume half to three-quarters of a cup of pure dry rolled oats per day, and that children can consume one-quarter cup (20 to 25 grams) per day.

However, AAFC said, oats “should only be introduced when celiac disease is well controlled, and with supervision from a health care professional.”

In its document on gluten-free claims, AAFC said Health Canada “recognizes the need to develop clear standards for pure oats and products that contain them, along with clear labelling to signal the presence of oats to protect those who are intolerant to pure oats.”

As an interim measure, AAFC said, products containing “pure” oats can bear the label “wheat, rye and barley free.”

In the U.S., any foods that come in under 20 ppm for gluten are eligible to carry a gluten-free claim, including “inherently gluten-free foods.” U.S. regulations do not define oats as a gluten-containing grain.

In Canada, however, oats are on the list of gluten-containing grains and the term “gluten-free” is not permitted on packaged food products containing oats. — AGCanada.com Network

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Currently halfway through its four-year project called “Development of Gluten-Free Products Using Pulse Ingredients,” Cigi has incorporated pulses in tortillas, pan breads and most recently, crackers. Other upcoming products include pasta and noodles.

Gluten-free foods are usually high in starch mainly from the use of rice and tapioca, ingredients that are also low in fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals, says Heather Hill, project manager of pulse flour milling and and food applications.

Since the project began, Cigi has been in contact with commercial gluten-free processors to gain insight into any production issues and requirements, Hill says. Processors are open to including healthy ingredients such as pulses to increase nutritional levels but are concerned about taste and functionality of the final products. Feedback from a survey of gluten-free consumers also indicated that flavour and nutrition are of prime importance.

Hill says Cigi has evaluated gluten-free domestic products and ingredients to help determine quality targets and formulations for the inclusion of pulses. “We evaluated ingredients for bread and then developed a gluten-free product with 30 per cent and 50 per cent pulse flours. We found that fababean flour worked very well for high-quality colour and crumb structure comparable to the gluten-free control or even better.”

Most recently, three different pulse crackers were developed and evaluated against a control cracker sample made from ingredients commonly found in a selection of commercially available gluten-free crackers. Cigi found that when the industry standards (i.e. corn starch and rice flour) were used as the main ingredients, the control cracker was low in nutritional quality.

Pulses technologist Gina Boux says crackers are a practical choice for gluten-free product development with pulses.

“For crackers you don’t need the gluten strength that you would typically need for pan bread or even tortillas or pitas, and it is easier to experiment with more savoury ingredients.”

Lentil/pea/bean blend

For the pulse crackers, pea fibre and three 50-50 blends of pulse flours were used: whole yellow pea and split red lentil, whole yellow pea and precooked navy bean, and split red lentil and precooked navy bean. To produce the crackers, the pulse ingredients were combined with the gluten-free ingredients used for the control sample. These included brown and white rice flour, corn and potato starch, and corn flour in addition to egg powder, vegetable shortening and salt.

Although there is some concern that pulse ingredients may introduce strong or undesirable flavours, blending pulse flours appears to limit specific pea or bean flavours or the perception of such flavours, she says.

The addition of pulse flours and pea fibre resulted in crackers that were firmer and thicker than the gluten-free control, although firmness decreased after seven days. Crackers made with yellow pea and precooked navy bean had the best texture, producing the thinnest cracker, and those made with yellow pea and red lentil flour had the most desirable flavour.

“We typically use yellow pea in our formulations because we grow them the most in Canada and are trying to add value to the crop while red lentil, which gives a nice peppery flavour, is also a common pulse type grown in Canada,” Boux says.

All the pulse crackers had an increased nutritional profile, especially in fibre content, and tasted better than the control cracker although there are some challenges with cracker texture, she says. “The biggest thing when developing these products on a lab scale is achieving the flavour. If they taste good and nutritional content is improved, that’s a great start. Then a commercial processor can steer you in the right direction on improving the texture.”

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The strength of CWRS is hidden in its sheer versatility and its ability to jump from one role to the next. It’s ideal for the production of high-volume pan breads, it has well-balanced elasticity and extensibility for noodle applications, and it can be used as a flour improver when blended with weaker-protein wheat. Quite simply, it’s useful in just about any flour-based end product.

“That’s the thing about CWRS. It’s quite versatile,” says Elaine Sopiwnyk, Cigi’s director of grain quality. “A lot of times, what millers like about it is that you could potentially make different flours that have different qualities for a number of different end products.”

That versatility is borne out by the fact that countries from virtually every global region import CWRS  —  from Asia to the Middle East, plus Europe, Africa and North, South and Central America  —  all with their vastly different product requirements.

Available in three milling grades, CWRS is able to fill that tricky role of being able to efficiently satisfy protein content and quality with each market’s need to balance cost and customer specifications.

Its protein strength makes CWRS excellent in baking applications, as it is used to make not only pan bread but also various flatbreads, including pita, naan, chapati and even some hearth breads.

“CWRS is used a lot for pan breads, typically referred to as “high-volume” pan breads because bakers are looking for really good loaf volume, where the loaf is quite large in terms of height and size,” says Sopiwnyk.

But the bread wheat market is surprisingly diverse, Sopiwnyk adds. “You’d think a loaf of bread is the same everywhere, but it’s not.”

There are slight variations in pan breads among different countries due to a variety of factors. For example, different countries like different levels of sweetness in their bread, some have reduced salt requirements, and some processing conditions are unique to a particular region.

Regardless, with its bright flour colour and capacity for high water absorption, CWRS distinguishes itself by producing dough that mixes well with good processing and fermentation tolerance for all baking processes.

For a wide range of noodle and other Asian products, CWRS, with its well-balanced elasticity and extensibility, promises a smooth sheeting process. For markets that prefer pasta made from common wheat, CWRS may be used alone or in conjunction with durum for pasta production.

CWRS is also known for maintaining high flour milling yields with low protein losses. It has a strong but mellow gluten strength that ultimately results in a dough with good balance, making CWRS an ideal wheat “improver.”

“It is used as a blending wheat to improve overall quality while meeting cost requirements,” says Sopiwnyk. “Often, markets have access to domestic wheat or other lower-quality wheat that may have lower freight and overall costs, but these wheats might not have the quality that CWRS has. So in that case, they would blend in CWRS at 20 or 30 per cent to improve the quality.”

While CWRS’s capacity isn’t limitless, the breadth of applications it offers to so many different countries, all with different product requirements, is what gives this Canadian wheat an edge in the global wheat market.

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General Mills Canada said Wednesday that the products it sells in Canada aren’t included in the recall announced Tuesday in the U.S.

General Mills recalled several days of production of Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios cereal made at its Lodi, California facility on certain dates in July and sold in the U.S., due to an “undeclared allergen,” namely wheat.

General Mills “did not ship these cereals to Canada” and General Mills Canada does not source its Cheerios from the Lodi plant, the company said Wednesday.

Canadian Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios cereals are made at a different facility not included in the recall. They can be identified by their “distinctive” bilingual cereal boxes, the company said.

Consumers who brought U.S.-made Cheerios into Canada can check the “better if used by” date on the package, General Mills said.

Recalled Honey Nut Cheerios have date codes between 12JUL2016LD and 25JUL2016LD, while recalled original (yellow box) Cheerios have date codes between 14JUL2016LD and 17JUL2016LD. — AGCanada.com Network

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Almost a third of Canadians, 10 million people, are seeking out gluten-free products, according to a report from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. More than seven million consumers perceive gluten-free foods to be a healthier choice.

The wheat industry experienced a slight drop in demand due to the popularity of gluten-free food, according to Blair Rutter, executive director for the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association in Winnipeg.

But Rutter said the craze is starting to reverse.

“Obviously there’s people with celiac disease that have to avoid gluten, and others with some sensitivities to gluten, but it has been overplayed. What we’re seeing is a rebound in demand as more people realize that the concerns were largely unfounded,” Rutter said.

In Canada, one per cent of Canadians have celiac disease, a digestive reaction to gluten, and six per cent have non-celiac gluten sensitivity, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Heather Maskus is the project manager for pulse flour milling and applications at the Canadian International Grains Institute. She uses pulses to create gluten-free foods in a organization that is 90 per cent focused on wheat.

Maskus isn’t sure if the trend will continue to grow. “Some large companies that really focus on wheat flour milling say it seems to be tapering off a bit,” she said.

“Companies that were really immersed in gluten-free products, their perception is that it’s growing.”

Despite the impact gluten-free had, or could continue to have on demand, Canadian pulse growers can capitalize on the trend, she said.

“Pulses are very high in protein and fibre. Gluten-free foods are typically lacking in it,” she said.

“With the growing market in gluten-free we saw a really good opportunity to combine the two together to understand more about pulse ingredients.”

— Jade Markus writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Dieters have shunned wheat, the key ingredient in bread, cookies and noodles, since the 2011 bestseller Wheat Belly, written by Wisconsin cardiologist William Davis, claimed modern wheat isn’t what it used to be, causes sickness, and should not be eaten.

But while Canadian spring wheat morphed into a more productive, shorter plant between 1860 and 2001, its concentration of total grain protein, including gluten, within the kernel has increased only about one per cent, according to University of Saskatchewan plant science professors Ravi Chibbar and Pierre Hucl.

Their paper was recently published in the journal Cereal Chemistry. Its results were presented also at this week’s Canadian Nutrition Society conference in Winnipeg.

“Wheat is a very nutritious grain and people should keep on eating wheat because it’s not going to cause the effects that are being claimed,” Chibbar said in an interview on Friday. “Grain composition hasn’t really changed that much.”

The study involved 24 replicated trials over 19 years in fields in central Saskatchewan, and seeds from 37 Canada Western Red Spring (CWRS) wheat varieties ranging from Red Fife to Superb, representing grain from each decade from the 1860s onward.

The study’s stated objective was to measure the rate of wheat cultivar improvement “in light of relatively narrow end-use quality definitions for the CWRS market class.”

The researchers compared the older varieties’ nutritional composition against “modern” CWRS varieties and analyzed concentration of starches and proteins, including gluten.

The study also found CWRS’ days to spike emergence and plant height decreased over time, while kernel weight, SDS sedimentation volume (a measurement of bread-making quality), farinograph absorption (measuring flour’s water absorption) and dough development time increased.

Protein concentration determines a loaf’s volume. Davis’ “Wheat Belly” website says wheat has 1,000 proteins, including gluten, that create unwanted effects on health, making it a “Frankengrain” that “has exerted more harm than any foreign terrorist group can inflict.”

Davis, through a spokeswoman, said he needed time to read the study before commenting on it.

Chibbar’s conclusion echoes that of recent studies on U.S. wheat, but his paper is based on 18 years of experiments on cultivated varieties dating back to 1860. The seeds for the experiments are stored in banks, and the new plants they produce replenish seed supplies.

“There is no evidence to suggest that the increased incidences of obesity, diabetes or other health conditions in today’s society are related to the wheat varieties developed during the recent decades as claimed by some critics,” he said in a release Friday from the Healthy Grains Institute, an industry-backed not-for-profit body.

The study was launched in 1989 with funding from the university, the Saskatchewan agriculture ministry, the Canada Research Chairs program and grain handler Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, now part of commodity firm Glencore’s Viterra unit.

Chibbar, an expert in grain quality, got involved three years ago to examine the data for nutritional changes.

The co-authors plan another paper focusing on starch, the biggest component in wheat, for release next year.

— Rod Nickel is a Reuters correspondent covering the agriculture and mining sectors from Winnipeg. Includes files from AGCanada.com Network staff.

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Gluten-free products have been on the radar for the pulse industry for some time, says Heather Maskus, project manager for pulse flour milling and food applications at Cigi.

“Companies we have worked with in the past have indicated this is an area where they see a major market opportunity for pulses,” Maskus says. “Pulses can provide gluten-free products with enhanced nutrition and health benefits, particularly by adding protein, fibre, and complex carbohydrates in the formulations.”

Many commercial gluten-free foods are high in starch-based ingredients derived from products such as rice and tapioca, but they are generally low in fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals, Maskus says. Some of the gluten-free products may contain more nutritious ingredients such as ancient grains, but they can be expensive while pulses are a cost-effective alternative.

“A lot of the commercial gluten-free formulations have a lot of egg in them as well and quite a bit of sugar,” Maskus says. “The egg is used to build the structure as it has a strong ability to whip and incorporate air. But using egg as an ingredient to provide the foundation is also an expensive way to make a product.”

Since April, Cigi has completed a global market analysis of gluten-free food products. The study shows an increase in gluten-free consumers, particularly in North America where, since 2009, gluten-free products have been increasing at an annual rate of 40 per cent.

Recently, Cigi began examining gluten-free domestic products to determine quality targets. “We are developing formulations for our in-house controls and will start incorporating pulses,” Maskus says. “So far, we have done some work using pulses in tortillas, started on pan breads, and may next try reformulating noodles and pasta.”

A major emphasis of the project will be the involvement of commercial gluten-free food processing companies, Maskus adds. Since gluten-free product development is a relatively new area, most of the work to date has been carried out by the companies themselves and not a lot of information is publicly available. Involving commercial partners will provide the added benefit of introducing pulses as functional, practical gluten-free ingredients.

“A lot of the products are very niche,” Maskus says. “So this is about presenting the idea of pulses as food ingredients to these companies and for us to understand what kind of quality they need.”

The type of pulses will at least partly depend on the objectives of the commercial partners, Maskus explains. “Often we look at opportunities for peas and lentils due to their volume but there is a lot of potential for other pulses as well. So it will be a combination of which pulses have the desired functionality, flavour properties and handling abilities for use in key product applications.”

Maskus says pulses in the Canadian industry have been primarily positioned in partnership with cereals  and, so far, about 70 per cent of Cigi’s pulse work has been conducted in combination with wheat.

“Since we have built our product development information using wheat in product applications, we now have to take a new approach to using pulses in these gluten-free applications,” Maskus says. “We are going to try something completely different by using pulses in combination with other cereals like corn or rice to create a new platform of knowledge. It definitely is a major opportunity for Canadian pulses as ingredients in this growing market.”

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