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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.
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.
The suit cites Quebec agriculture ministry inspection reports and alleges Metro knew of complaints about the syrup as early as 2016, and Epicia as early as 2025, CBC reported.
Loblaw confirmed to National Post that it had been served.
“We can confirm that we have been served with the proposed class action claim and intend to contest authorization. As this is now an active litigation matter, we are unable to provide further information at this time,” Youmna Rab, a Loblaw spokesperson, said in an email.
“As legal proceedings are currently underway, we have no comment at this time,” Catherine Latendresse, a communications manager at Metro, said in an email.
Metro, Sobeys and Epicia had already filed to contest, CBC reported.
Bourdeau denies altering his syrup and blames his suppliers. “Maybe we were sent a bad batch,” he told Enquete. He also acknowledged to the program that he had sold Ontario syrup in cans labelled product of Quebec, which is illegal.
A separate proceeding is running in front of Quebec’s agricultural markets regulator. The Quebec Maple Syrup Producers federation asked it in April to investigate three years of Bourdeau’s operations, suspend his production quota, seize his syrup and impose more than $166,000 in penalties plus unpaid contributions, the Gazette reported.
He admitted buying syrup “on the black market” for years and has acknowledged rule violations going back more than a decade, including settlements covering 2010 to 2022, the filing says. The regulator has not ruled.
The federation had been looking into the company since January and complained to Quebec’s agriculture ministry on Feb. 20, weeks before Enquete aired.
In June, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recalled all lot codes of 540-millilitre pure maple syrup under the 9227-8712 Quebec Inc. and L’Erabeille brands, sold in Ontario and Quebec. The recall was for container integrity defects and spoilage, not adulteration, and was rated Class 3, the least severe level.
Many grocers offered refunds in the weeks after the broadcast. The suit argues that is not enough, because a class action can also award punitive damages and interest.
Quebec inspects roughly 90 per cent of the syrup it produces in bulk. It does not inspect the cans a producer sells straight to a grocer, which is how Bourdeau sold his.
“We don’t classify maple syrup from a producer who sells directly to a supermarket,” Genevieve Clermont, head of ACER’s inspection division, told Enquete.
Sobeys and Slater Vecchio, the law firm behind the class action, did not respond to National Post’s requests for comment.
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