Navigate Canadian food import licensing, SFCR importer requirements, foreign supplier verification, Safe Food for Canadians License for importers, and US FSVP compliance.
Montreal's food sector is one of the most diverse in North America, including kosher, halal, ethnic, dairy, and craft food producers, with provincial MAPAQ oversight on top of federal CFIA requirements.
Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)
Ministère de l'Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l'Alimentation du Québec (MAPAQ)
Direction régionale de santé publique de Montréal
When you engage Iyarkai for Importer support in Montreal, we map every requirement back to the specific regulator most likely to inspect or audit your facility — so you spend less time guessing and more time building a compliant operation.
Iyarkai Scientific Consultation is Montreal's trusted partner for food importer compliance. As Quebec's vibrant metropolitan food hub, Montreal is home to a growing number of food manufacturers, processors, importers, and exporters who rely on expert food safety compliance to access domestic and international markets. Our experienced consultants bring hands-on regulatory knowledge - including CFIA, SFCR, FDA FSMA, and leading GFSI certification schemes - directly to your Montreal facility. Whether you need to develop your first food importer compliance or strengthen an existing program ahead of a regulatory inspection or retailer audit, Iyarkai delivers measurable results.
Book a free 30-minute consultation with an Iyarkai food importer compliance consultant serving Montreal.
Contact Us TodayMontreal is one of Canada's principal food import gateways — the port brings European specialty foods, North African and Middle Eastern products, and global commodities into a distribution network serving the whole eastern seaboard. Every commercial importer in that chain needs an SFC licence with import as a listed activity, a Preventive Control Plan demonstrating foreign supplier verification, and labelling compliance that in Quebec means genuinely French-first presentation. Import files here get tested at the border, in CFIA verification, and on MAPAQ-inspected retail shelves.
Three things: commodity scopes on the SFC licence that don't match what's actually declared at the border, foreign supplier verification files that amount to a brochure rather than evidence of food safety controls, and labels lacking compliant French text, Canadian allergen declarations, or metric units. European compliance does not transfer — EU-legal products can be non-compliant in Canada, particularly on additives and labelling.
Documented assurance that each supplier controls the hazards in the food you import: certificates from recognized systems, audit reports, testing programs, or a combination proportionate to the risk, plus procedures for what you do when a supplier fails. CFIA can ask you to demonstrate this for any supplier at any time — we build supplier files commodity by commodity so the answer is always on hand.
End-to-end compliance for food importers — covering SFCR import licensing, foreign supplier verification, PCP, and labelling.
4 to 10 weeks depending on import scope and origin countries.
CFIA / SFCR / FDA FSVP