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A company accused of producing bogus maple syrup is now the target of a class-action lawsuit that has been filed in Quebec Superior Court.
The lawsuit request targets the numbered company 9227-8712 Québec inc., which operates under the name “Érablière Steve Bourdeau.”
Steve Bourdeau is a producer based in Saint-Chrysostome, Que., in the Montérégie region southwest of Montreal. The lawsuit has not yet been authorized.
According to the class-action filing, the company betrayed consumer trust by representing or describing its maple syrup as “pure.” The company is also accused of selling maple syrup as originating from Quebec when it actually came from another province.
This class-action request is based on revelations from Radio-Canada’s investigative program Enquête, which had five cans sold in grocery stores laboratory tested. All samples contained at least 50 per cent cane sugar and all cans came from the numbered company.
The filing accuses Bourdeau’s company of knowingly misleading “millions of consumers in Canada regarding the composition, quality or origin of its cans of maple syrup.” The lawsuit was filed by the firm Slater Vecchio on behalf of plaintiff Maude Fraser-Jodoin.
Fraser-Jodoin wants the court to grant a payment of $100 in punitive damages per group member. If authorized, the class action will include anyone who has purchased a can since April 7, 2023.
Last year alone, Bourdeau’s company sold hundreds of thousands of cans, he said during a phone call with Radio-Canada.
In front of Enquête’s hidden cameras, Bourdeau boasted about selling his products at low prices in hundreds of grocery stores in Quebec and Ontario, including Metro, Farm Boy and IGA.
Bourdeau told Enquête that he did not modify his syrup and blamed his suppliers.
“Maybe we were sent a bad batch. We are going to try to find where it’s coming from. I’ll do my own investigation,” he said.
As for the adulterated syrup offered on grocery store shelves, he had no plans to correct the situation. He said there wouldn’t be much left after a few weeks and “we aren’t going to do much about it.”
Some Quebec grocery stores have since invited customers to return their unopened cans following the investigation.
“As soon as we learned of the situation, we asked all stores concerned to pull this product from their shelves,” said Metro grocery store spokesperson Geneviève Grégoire.
