The Canada Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has added new hold-and-test conditions to the Safe Food for Canadians (SFC) licenses for the import of fresh enoki mushrooms from Korea and China.

Fresh enoki mushrooms that are imported from these countries now have requirements to be held and tested at the first destination address in Canada as provided by the importer under paragraph 13(1)(d) of the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR).

Each sampling lot tested must be tested and held until the test results reveal that L. monocytogenes has not been detected.

“Sampling lot” is defined as “one type of homogenous enoki mushroom product that has been exposed to the same growing, harvesting, and packaging conditions, and bears the same lot code from the foreign producer or exporter.”

Failure to comply with these conditions could result in the incoming foods being seized and detained, destroyed, and/or removed from Canada, and importers could have their SFC license suspended or cancelled.

These new conditions are to manage the risk of imported fresh enoki mushrooms containing Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes), which can make consumers sick if the mushrooms are eaten raw or undercooked. Imported fresh enoki mushrooms have been subject to more than a dozen Government of Canada food recall notices in the past four years due to possible Listeria contamination.

Read the full regulatory requirements, including detailed testing procedures, here.

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