Prime Energy drinks pulled from Canadian shelves – but how did they get here?

The recall of a high-caffeine energy drink raises questions about how the cans of Prime Energy that violated Canada’s health regulations ended up on store shelves.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said Tuesday it is recalling cans of Prime Energy containing 200 milligrams of caffeine after CBC News reported they were being sold in stores in at least three provinces.

Health Canada’s limit for such drinks is 180 milligrams of caffeine. Other energy drink brands are also part of the recall.

A food law expert says items that violate Canada’s health regulations were usually exported by foreign manufacturers who don’t know the rules.

“[They might be] unaware of the limits of caffeine or unaware that certain food additives are not harmonized,” says, for example, Glenford Jameson, an attorney and partner at GS Jameson & Co. in Toronto, between Canada and the US.

It would be up to a distributor to restrict access, he says.

But with e-commerce, that can get tricky. Jameson says major online retailers are struggling to comply with regulations, but the industry has seen improvements to ensure products meet each country’s standards.

Another common way is through a third country.

A manufacturer may sell its product in another territory, where a distributor or trader eventually exports it to Canada, without notifying the manufacturer.

“They made this product, [it’s] not supposed to be safe or at least not compliant in Canada, but it still gets here, and how do they manage to do that?” he said. “It’s a very difficult problem.”

CBC News bought a 200-milligram can of Prime Energy from a Montreal store on Wednesday. Workers there said it was imported from the US

Prime previously said it “complied with federal regulations” in its markets, but could not explain the presence of the drinks in Canada. The cans with 200 milligrams of caffeine are intended for the American market. The company claims to have a Canadian version with 140 milligrams of caffeine.

Prime did not respond to a request for comment on the recall notice on Wednesday.

‘Difficult for police’

Jameson says that while food and drink should be regulated at the border, agencies often overlook stuff.

“If you can envision the amount of goods coming into Canada on any given day, it’s kind of hard to control this sort of thing,” he said.

While the CFIA sets the rules for food, drink, plants and similar products coming into Canada, it is the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) that enforces these requirements before releasing the goods into Canada, the CBSA said.

The CFIA is “often quite reactive,” Jameson said.

“They don’t spend a lot of time patrolling shelves or searching boxes at the border,” he said for lower-risk products like Prime Energy.

Dr. Jane Shearer, a professor of exercise science at the University of Calgary, says caffeine shouldn’t fall under the purview of the CFIA because it’s a drug.

“It’s very problematic,” she said. “I think energy drink companies have largely been in charge here and the Canadian government needs to do more to get a handle on what’s in the market. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen products on the market that violate Health Canada regulations. surpass.”

The Health Canada recommended maximum caffeine intake for children up to age 18 is 2.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weightper day.

For adults, it is no more than 400 milligrams.

Coffee can sometimes contain more than 180 milligrams of caffeine in a single serving and is not as strictly regulated. But experts say the concern with energy drinks is how they are marketed and whether they target vulnerable demographics.

“It’s framed as fun, it’s framed as a little trendy, it’s framed as healthy and it’s also framed as optimizing your performance, when really it’s just water with caffeine in it,” says Timothy Caulfield, Canada research chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta.

“So I think it makes sense [that] regulators monitor such products to ensure their claims are justified.”

Consumer safety advocate Jim Shepherd agrees that the branding and marketing of these drinks attracts a younger demographic who may be unaware of the health implications.

That’s why he wants Canada to ban the sale of all energy drinks to people under 18.

Shepherd, who lives in Toronto, believes his son Brian’s consumption of a caffeinated energy drink was the cause of the 15-year-old’s death in 2008.

An autopsy revealed that Brian experienced an acute arrhythmic event after a paintball game. According to Shepherd, the only drug in his system was caffeine.

It wasn’t until months after Brian’s death that Shepherd said he was told an energy drink company attended the game and handed out samples of the drink, which his son consumed.

He has been advocating for better regulation ever since.

“There have been some changes, but it’s not 100 percent enough,” he said.

“They really haven’t protected young people and children very well. I really don’t care if an adult is drinking the drinks as long as they’re aware and I think that’s the most important thing, most of them aren’t aware of it .”

Over the years, research has shown that these types of drinks can have bad health effects on people. This overview of recent research says energy drinks can cause anxiety, insomnia, irregular heart rhythms, and sometimes death.

Shepherd says he wants the CFIA to become more proactive and hand out more penalties to bad players.

“Unless someone complains about it when it’s wrong, it won’t be corrected,” he said, adding that even when he has made complaints, he has not seen proper retaliation.

Shepherd says he’s been following Prime’s buzz and knew it was only a matter of time before it came to Canada.

“My main concern is with the kids,” he said. “Not many parents are aware of the potential danger of these drinks.”