A small Victoria ice-cream producer is scrambling to make up revenue after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency ordered its product removed from local grocery stores due to insufficient labelling.
Owner Autumn Maxwell said she has been told she can no longer sell her Cold Comfort Ice Cream in grocery stores as the pint-sized cartons do not have adequate nutritional-fact labelling. They also lack French labelling.
Maxwell said the loss of grocery business, even though it was just in 10 small, local grocers, is going to hurt.
“I didn’t go out and ask them to [carry the product]. They approached me and asked if I would supply it. It just sort of happened and the business became dependent on that income,” she said, noting grocery sales account for 50 per cent of her revenue, with sales at her North Park headquarters making up the rest.
“[That revenue] basically got me through the winter,” Maxwell said. “Summer is fine. In fact, I have to hire extra staff then, but winter usually is pretty tight so having those 10 stores, even if it was small orders, was reliable income.
“So now I’m sitting here watching and waiting for people to come through my door.”
Reached on Thursday, a CFIA spokesperson could not comment on the situation, nor explain how Cold Comfort transgressed or what it would have to do in order to be allowed to return to grocery shelves.
There are hundreds of regulations listed on CFIA’s website under dairy-labelling guidelines.
Maxwell admits she’s a bit “foggy” on the whole thing and upset about how it all happened.
According to Maxwell, a phoned-in complaint led to a team of CFIA inspectors in lab coats combing through her operation in the fall.
Maxwell said she is still scratching her head as to why she is being singled out, when other artisan producers all over the city have insufficiently labelled products on grocery shelves.
“If it’s so important for people’s safety to have these labels for every single flavour, why isn’t that applied from the start for everyone?” she asked. She said also takes issue with the fact that the CFIA seems to be complaint-driven when it comes to labelling.
The remedy is not simple for a small business such as Maxwell’s.
She specializes in interesting flavours — balsamic, blackberry and juniper, and avocado, tequila and cilantro are two examples. She focuses on small-batch ice creams that reflect the seasons and local flavours. Because she tends to make ice cream in small batches, it’s not economical to have proper labels created for each flavour.
“The problem for me is I’m not a chocolate, vanilla and strawberry kind of girl. The whole reason I’m doing what I’m doing and why people responded to it is I’m doing something different and it’s fun,” she said, noting she has 360 flavours in her arsenal.
“I could conform and have three flavours available for sale in stores … but it confines me creatively.
“I didn’t start doing this so I could make 100 litres of vanilla ice cream every day. That’s not fun for me.”
Cold Comfort offers 15 flavours in pint containers, 20 ice-cream sandwich flavours and seven fresh by-the-scoop flavours at its storefront headquarters on North Park Street.
Maxwell said she is considering creating two or three labels that would allow her to sell her most popular ice creams in stores.
“I want to maintain a spot on the shelf if the retailers will have me back,” she said.
