Marmite and Irn-Bru shipment seized in Canada crackdown

Canadian customs have seized a shipment of Marmite and Irn-Bru bound for a British foods shop in Canada in a crackdown on banned additives.

Tony Badger, who owns Brit Foods in Saskatoon in central Canada, said he lost more than 20,000 CAD when the cargo from the UK was seized.

Irn-Bru contains the Ponceau 4R food coloring, while Marmite is enriched with vitamins and minerals which are unacceptable to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Lucozade, Penguin bars, and Bovril were also in the package and seized, as they all fall foul of the country’s food laws. The CFIA is believed to be clamping down on foods that breach its laws.

Tony Badger told Canada talk radio station CKOM he had been importing and selling the products since 1997.

Marmite is enriched with vitamins and minerals which are unacceptable to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

“We’ve been bringing Irn-Bru in since the very beginning. I haven’t heard of anyone dying from consuming Irn-Bru in Scotland or Britain.

“All we’re looking for is fair and equitable treatment. If a product is banned and they show us in writing it’s banned, then we’ll understand, it’s banned and this is the reason.”

Tony Badger said last October the shipment was detained for inspection, and he began to ask questions when the process took longer than usual.

CFIA officials then came to his store last Thursday and seized the remaining product from his shelves.

Shoppers describe the ban on Marmite and Irn-Bru as “insanity” in a country that allows the sale of “firearms, guns and bullets”.

AG Barr, the Scottish company which manufactures Irn-Bru, produces a Canada-specific product that does not contain Ponceau 4R.

The colorant is being removed voluntarily from its European recipe, following a request from the UK Food Standards Agency , which investigated concerns over links to hyperactivity in children.