A “best before” date is shown on a food container in Toronto, Tuesday, July 4, 2023. A report from a House committee is recommending the government take another look at its rules around best before dates in an effort to cut down on food waste. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giordano Ciampini
Canadians’ misunderstanding of best before dates could be contributing to excess food waste and, in turn, food insecurity, experts say as a government committee urges Ottawa to examine the issue.
A report on grocery affordability from a House of Commons committee on agriculture and agri-food includes arguments that Canada do away with best before dates due to the widespread misconception that they indicate whether a product is safe to consume.
Experts say all they indicate is when a product is past its peak freshness.
“There’s a lot of confusion around what food labels mean,” Kate Parizeau, a professor at the University of Guelph who studies food waste, said Tuesday.
“A lot of people think that best before dates are expiry dates, when there are actually very few products in Canada that have a proper expiry date.”
Generally, the only foods with an expiry date are those that have a specific nutritional requirement that could degrade over time, such as baby formula. Best before dates, on the other hand, are required on foods that are expected to go bad within 90 days.
Food manufacturers and processors tend to slap them on all sorts of products, though, Parizeau noted, and they are of limited utility.
“I think many people have this idea that before dates are determined by scientists in a lab measuring how many days until a product goes bad,” she said.
“That’s not how it works. It’s something that the government tells manufacturers that they themselves have to figure out in-house, so it’s a bit of a black box.”
Parizeau encouraged consumers to learn more about food safety so they can determine for themselves whether groceries are spoiled.
“We’re so disconnected from our food sources. We don’t know when the product was picked. We don’t know how long it’s supposed to stay good,” she said.
“So if somebody puts peppers into cellophane and puts a sticker on them, we’re like, ‘OK, this is meaningful. I can trust whatever is put on the sticker.’ In part, because we don’t understand how that decision came about either.”
Lori Nikkel, the CEO of Second Harvest Canada, is quoted in the government report saying that best before dates encourage people to throw out “perfectly good food” when many go hungry because of rising costs.
“Eliminating best-before dates would prevent safe, consumable food from being thrown out and save Canadians money on their grocery bills,” she said in the report released last month, which recommends the government investigate “how the elimination of ‘best-before’ dates on foods would impact Canadians.”
Michael von Massow, an expert in food labeling who also teaches at the University of Guelph, said he’s in favour of doing away with the labels.
“Because they are so misinterpreted, I think there’s some real value in getting rid of them,” he said.
Von Massow said the extent to which food waste drives up cost is not clear, though it stands to reason that it plays some role by reducing the supply and increasing demand for groceries.
“If we were throwing out less stuff, we would save money in our households, even if prices didn’t change,” von Massow said.
“So I think there’s an argument that prices could change if we threw less of some products out. But even if it didn’t change, if we threw less stuff out, our grocery budget would go down.”
The suggestion that the government study the potential effects of removing best before dates is one of 13 in the report.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
