Canada’s biggest grocers named in class action over ‘fake’ maple syrup

Metro, Sobeys and Loblaw are now defendants in a proposed class action over maple syrup tests found to be half cane sugar.

An amended application filed Aug. 3 in Quebec Superior Court added the three chains and Groupe Epicia, which runs Val-Mont grocery stores, CTV News reported.

The four are accused of demonstrating “negligence, recklessness, carelessness, or serious indifference” by putting the syrup on their shelves. The suit says the price alone should have prompted them to check it.

A Quebec judge has to authorize a class action before it can proceed, and nothing in the application has been tested in court. The case has moved from the producer to the chains that sold his product.

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The proposed class covers anyone in Canada who bought a can produced by 9227-8712 Quebec Inc. since Oct. 5, 2010, which the suit gives as the date Erabliere Steve Bourdeau began selling maple syrup. Hundreds of thousands of people, and possibly millions, could be eligible, CBC News reported.

It seeks a refund of the purchase price, unspecified compensatory damages and $100 in punitive damages for each person in the class.

Radio-Canada’s investigative program Enquete bought five cans of Bourdeau’s syrup at random in April, from different stores and different batches, and had them tested at le centre ACER , the provincial lab responsible for maple syrup quality control in Quebec. Grocers were selling his cans for as low as $4.99.

All five were labelled pure. All five came back with at least 50 per cent cane sugar. Luc Lagace, the lab’s director of research, told Enquete he had never seen falsification of that kind.

Bourdeau told Enquete his syrup sold in hundreds of grocery stores across Quebec and Ontario, naming IGA and Metro in Quebec and Farm Boy in Ontario. IGA and Farm Boy are both Sobeys banners. The Montreal Gazette reported that the producers’ federation alleged the syrup also reached Adonis stores.