For the thousands of South African expatriates who have made Canada their home, certain tastes are irreplaceable. The smoky aroma of a braai, the sweet comfort of a Peppermint Crisp tart, and the savoury, chewy perfection of authentic biltong are more than just food; they are powerful connections to culture, family, and identity.¹ Yet, for many, the search for proper biltong in Canada ends in frustration. It is either impossible to find, prohibitively expensive, or, most disappointingly, a pale imitation that lacks the true character of the original.⁴

It is a common assumption that this scarcity is a simple matter of market demand or a lack of entrepreneurial interest. The reality is far more complex and deeply frustrating. The reason authentic biltong is so elusive in Canada lies within a tangled, multi-layered, and often contradictory food safety regulatory framework. This system, designed to protect public health, inadvertently penalizes traditional food preservation methods, creating immense barriers for the very artisans and entrepreneurs trying to serve this passionate community.

This report will untangle that regulatory web. It will investigate the conflicting rules at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels that create a labyrinth for producers. It will explore the specific scientific and processing challenges that arise when a centuries-old air-drying tradition collides with a modern regulatory system built around heat-treatment. We will examine the “great wall” of federal licensing that prevents local biltong makers from selling to customers across provincial lines, and delve into the maddening inconsistency of enforcement that can make or break a business based on the arbitrary judgment of a single inspector. This is the story of why a beloved cultural food is caught in a regulatory bind, and why a common-sense reform is desperately needed.

The Three-Headed Hydra: Navigating Federal, Provincial, and Local Food Law

To understand the biltong producer’s plight, one must first grasp the convoluted structure of food safety governance in Canada. Responsibility is not held by a single entity but is fragmented across three levels of government: federal, provincial, and municipal. While intended to provide comprehensive oversight, this system often creates overlapping jurisdictions, conflicting advice, and a bureaucratic maze that is especially difficult for small, artisanal businesses to navigate.⁸

The Federal Level: The Rule-Setters and National Police

At the apex of the system are two key federal bodies. First is Health Canada, which operates under the authority of the Food and Drugs Act. Health Canada is the nation’s chief food scientist and policymaker; it is responsible for establishing the high-level standards, policies, and guidelines that govern the safety and nutritional quality of all food sold in the country.¹¹ Think of Health Canada as the architect that designs the blueprint for food safety.

The second federal body is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The CFIA is the national enforcement agency, the “boots on the ground” at the federal level. Its primary mandate is to enforce the policies and standards set by Health Canada.¹⁴ The CFIA’s authority is most pronounced when food crosses borders—either internationally (imports/exports) or interprovincially. The agency administers the powerful

Safe Food for Canadians Act (SFCA) and its associated Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR), which consolidate the rules for nearly all food commodities traded across provincial lines.¹⁶ If a biltong maker wants to ship their product from British Columbia to a customer in Alberta, they fall squarely under the CFIA’s jurisdiction.

The Provincial Level: The In-Province Gatekeepers

Beneath the federal umbrella, each province and territory has its own set of laws and regulations governing the production and sale of food within its own borders.⁹ In Ontario, it’s the

Health Protection and Promotion Act; in British Columbia, the Food Safety Act; in Quebec, the Food Products Act.¹⁹ These provincial bodies are responsible for licensing and inspecting facilities that operate exclusively intra-provincially, such as local butcher shops, restaurants, and small-scale food processors that are not federally registered.¹⁰ This is where the first layer of regulatory inconsistency emerges, as the rules and their interpretations can vary significantly from one province to the next.

The Municipal/Local Level: The Front-Line Inspectors

For most small-scale biltong producers, their most frequent and direct point of contact with the regulatory system is their local public health inspector, also known as an Environmental Health Officer (EHO) or Public Health Inspector (PHI).⁸ These inspectors, employed by municipal or regional health authorities, are responsible for conducting routine inspections of all food premises, from restaurants to butcher shops.²⁴ They enforce the provincial food safety regulations, which are themselves based on the high-level standards set by federal bodies. They have significant power, including the authority to issue orders, address non-compliance, and even shut down a facility if a health hazard is identified.⁸

This multi-layered structure creates a profound “jurisdiction trap” for aspiring biltong makers. A producer’s journey begins with their local inspector, who enforces provincial rules. However, those provincial rules are often interpretations of federal guidelines. If that same producer then wishes to expand and sell their product online to customers in other provinces, they must pivot from satisfying their local inspector to meeting an entirely different and more demanding set of requirements from the CFIA.²⁷ A business can be perfectly compliant and legal within its home province yet completely illegal for interprovincial trade. There is no single, clear authority a small producer can turn to for a definitive, nationwide answer on how to legally produce and sell their product. This fragmentation is the foundation upon which all other challenges are built.

Level	Key Agencies	Governing Legislation/Act (Examples)	Primary Responsibility
Federal	Health Canada (HC)	Food and Drugs Act	Establishes national policies, standards, and guidelines for food safety and nutrition.9
	Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)	Safe Food for Canadians Act (SFCA)	Enforces federal standards for food imported, exported, or traded between provinces.10 Issues federal licences.
Provincial	Provincial Health Ministries (e.g., OMAFRA in ON, MAPAQ in QC)	Health Protection and Promotion Act (ON), Food Safety Act (BC), Food Products Act (QC)	Regulates and inspects food produced and sold within provincial borders.10
Municipal	Local/Regional Public Health Units	Municipal Bylaws (derived from provincial acts)	Conducts routine, on-the-ground inspections of local food premises (restaurants, butchers, etc.).8

The Science of Safety: Why Your Butcher Can’t Just Hang Meat to Dry

At the heart of the regulatory challenge is a fundamental misunderstanding—or rather, a regulatory failure to differentiate—between the science of making biltong and the science of making North American-style beef jerky. While both are dried meat snacks, their production methods are worlds apart, and this difference is critical from a food safety perspective.²⁹

The Biltong Process vs. The Jerky Process

The traditional method for making biltong is an act of preservation, not cooking. It begins with thick strips of meat, often an inch or more, which are marinated in a solution dominated by vinegar and salt, and seasoned with spices like crushed coriander and black pepper. After marinating, the meat is hung in a controlled environment with low temperature and steady air circulation to slowly dry over a period of several days.³¹ The final product is cured and dehydrated, but fundamentally uncooked, resulting in a tender texture that can range from moist (or “wet”) to dry, depending on preference.³²

In stark contrast, North American jerky is typically made from very thin slices of meat that are marinated, often in a sweet, sugar-based sauce, and then rapidly dehydrated with heat in an oven or smoker.³⁰ The application of heat is a key distinction; jerky is a cooked product.

The Scientific Hurdle: Heat vs. Hurdles

Canadian food safety regulations for ready-to-eat (RTE) meat products are overwhelmingly designed around the jerky model. They are built on the principle of a heat-lethality step—a specific, easily measurable combination of temperature and time (for example, heating beef to an internal temperature of 71°C) that is proven to kill harmful pathogens like E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella.³⁷ This provides regulators with a simple, verifiable Critical Control Point (CCP) to ensure safety.

Biltong, however, achieves safety through a more complex, multi-faceted approach known as “hurdle technology.” Instead of a single, high-impact kill step, biltong relies on a series of smaller, cumulative barriers that, when combined, create an environment where pathogens cannot survive or multiply.⁴⁰ These hurdles include:

1. Low pH (Acidity): The vinegar marinade drastically lowers the surface pH of the meat, making it acidic and hostile to bacteria.³¹
2. Low Water Activity (aw​): This is a measure of the “free” water available for microbes to use for growth. The salt in the cure begins to draw out moisture, and the slow air-drying process removes the rest. A final water activity of 0.85 or less is considered a critical threshold that inhibits the growth of most foodborne pathogens.²⁶
3. Antimicrobial Compounds: Spices traditionally used in biltong, particularly coriander and black pepper, possess natural antimicrobial properties that add another layer of protection.³³

The central regulatory conflict arises from this difference. Because Canadian food law lacks a specific category for “air-dried, cured raw meat,” regulators tend to default to the only model they have well-established rules for: heat-treated jerky.⁴⁰ An inspector can easily verify a temperature log showing a product reached 71°C. It is far more difficult for them to validate a complex, multi-hurdle process. This requires a deep understanding of food science, microbiology, and the intricate interplay between pH, water activity, and drying time. Consequently, the system is inherently biased against traditional preservation methods, creating what can be called a “jerky default” that places the burden of proof squarely on the biltong maker.

Focus Box: The HACCP Hurdle for Small Producers

To legally produce any RTE meat product, a business must have a robust food safety plan, typically based on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) system.⁴⁵ HACCP is a globally recognized, systematic approach that focuses on preventing hazards rather than just inspecting finished products. It is built on seven core principles ¹⁸:

1. Conduct a Hazard Analysis.
2. Identify Critical Control Points (CCPs).
3. Establish Critical Limits for each CCP.
4. Establish Monitoring Procedures for CCPs.
5. Establish Corrective Actions.
6. Establish Verification Procedures.
7. Establish Record-Keeping Procedures.

For a large-scale jerky manufacturer, this is relatively straightforward. The CCP is cooking, the critical limit is temperature (e.g., 71°C), and monitoring involves a calibrated thermometer and a logbook.

For a small biltong maker, this is a monumental task. The CCPs are not a single point but a combination of factors: the pH of the marinade, the salt concentration, the temperature and humidity of the drying room, and the final water activity of the product.³¹ Establishing and validating the critical limits for this multi-hurdle process to prove it consistently achieves a 5-log reduction in pathogens—the standard often required to demonstrate safety without a heat step—is scientifically complex.⁴⁰ It often requires sending product samples to specialized labs for expensive analysis and hiring food safety consultants to write and validate the plan. For a small entrepreneur or butcher, the financial and technical barriers to creating a compliant HACCP plan for traditional biltong are often insurmountable.⁴⁹

Feature	Biltong	Jerky
Primary Preservation Method	Curing (salt, vinegar) & slow air-drying (dehydration)	Cooking/Smoking (heat) & rapid dehydration
Heat Applied?	No, dried at low/ambient temperatures (e.g., < 30°C) 51	Yes, cooked at moderate temperatures (e.g., > 60°C) 36
Key Ingredients	Vinegar, salt, coriander, pepper; no sugar traditionally 41	Often contains sugar, soy sauce, liquid smoke; no vinegar 29
Cut of Meat	Thick strips (e.g., 1-inch), can be lean or fatty 30	Thinly sliced strips, almost always very lean 29
Drying Time	Several days to weeks 52	Several hours 36
Final Texture	Tender, can be moist or dry, often compared to prosciutto 52	Chewy, tougher, more consistent texture 30
Regulatory Model	Falls into a grey area; often incorrectly forced into the jerky model. Safety based on “hurdle technology”.40	Well-established model based on a heat-lethality step.37

The Provincial Patchwork: A Cross-Country Contradiction

The federal “jerky default” creates a ripple effect, leading to a confusing and inconsistent patchwork of rules at the provincial level. An entrepreneur’s ability to legally produce authentic biltong depends less on food safety science and more on their postal code. A process deemed acceptable in one province may be strictly forbidden in another.

Ontario: The Fortress

Ontario stands out as one of the most restrictive provinces for biltong producers. While the provincial Meat Regulation (O. Reg. 31/05) broadly defines “preserved” meat to include dried and cured products ⁵⁴, the practical guidance from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) is far more rigid. OMAFRA guidance documents effectively mandate a heat-lethality step, explicitly stating that “drying does not destroy microorganisms or their toxins” and that meat dried without a prior kill step “may not be adequately processed to achieve the lethality necessary to produce a safe product”.³⁹ This stance forces provincially licensed facilities to adopt a jerky-like process. For example,

Bokkies Biltong in Barrie is a provincially licensed, free-standing meat plant that operates under weekly OMAFRA inspections.⁵⁵ To comply, they must adhere to the province’s rigorous, heat-focused standards, which inevitably means their product must deviate from the traditional, no-heat method.

British Columbia: The Grey Zone

British Columbia presents a more nuanced, yet ambiguous, regulatory landscape. Guidelines from regional bodies like Interior Health are more sophisticated, acknowledging drying as a distinct process. They specify critical limits for non-fermented dried products, such as a maximum drying temperature of 15°C, and define shelf-stability based on achieving a water activity (aw​) of 0.85 or less, or a pH of 4.6 or less.⁴² On the surface, this framework seems more accommodating to traditional biltong.

However, this flexibility is undercut by uncertainty. The BC Centre for Disease Control has noted that historical food safety advice within the province has consistently recommended a cook step for dried meats. Furthermore, it highlights that BC health authorities often defer to CFIA and even USDA guidance when faced with questions about biltong.³⁹ This creates a grey zone where the written rules may seem permissive, but an inspector’s interpretation could still default to the more conservative “jerky” model. This environment has allowed a more vibrant biltong scene to emerge, with producers like

Netvleish making authentic products, but it also means they are confined to selling only within BC.⁵⁷

Alberta: The Hybrid Approach

Alberta has forged a unique hybrid model. The province’s guidelines for dried meat production recognize the traditional process but impose a critical modification: a mandatory pre-drying heat treatment. All beef products must be heated to an internal temperature of 71°C before the drying process begins, specifically as a kill step for E. coli O157:H7.³⁷ While this approach is a clear attempt to reconcile traditional methods with modern safety targets, it fundamentally alters the biltong process, forcing a deviation that purists would argue changes the product’s essential character.

Quebec: The Distinct Society

Quebec operates within its own distinct regulatory universe, governed by the Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation (MAPAQ).²⁰ To produce and sell meat products wholesale, an entrepreneur needs a

permis de vente en gros for charcuterie générale (general cured meats).⁵⁸ The regulations are detailed, covering everything from facility design to temperature controls and sourcing from inspected abattoirs.⁵⁹

However, when it comes to dried meats, MAPAQ’s specific guidance for “jerky” and “pepperettes” once again lumps biltong into a category that doesn’t fit. The rules mandate a cooking step to a safe internal temperature before drying and specify target water activity levels (aw​ ≤ 0.85 for non-vacuum packed products).⁶¹ While the regulations acknowledge the practice of hanging dried meats ⁶², it is within a framework that presupposes cooking, making the production of authentic, air-cured biltong a significant challenge.

This provincial patchwork has created a distorted and inequitable market. An entrepreneur’s success is determined not by the quality of their product or their business acumen, but by the specific regulatory interpretations of their home province. This system actively prevents the development of a national standard for authentic biltong and denies consumers in stricter provinces access to a product legally and safely produced in others.

The Federal Fortress: The High Cost of Crossing a Border

For a biltong maker who has successfully navigated their provincial rules, a new, even more formidable obstacle emerges if they wish to sell to customers in another province: the federal government. Under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR), any food business that prepares a product for interprovincial trade must hold a federal licence issued by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).¹⁸

At first glance, the process seems manageable. An entrepreneur applies online through the “My CFIA” portal and pays a modest licence fee of around $287, which is valid for two years.⁶³ However, the fee is deceptive. The true barrier to entry is not the licence itself, but the prerequisite for obtaining it: a comprehensive, written

Preventive Control Plan (PCP).¹⁸

The PCP is the heart of the SFCR framework. It is a highly detailed document, an evolution of the HACCP system, that requires a business to identify every conceivable biological, chemical, and physical hazard at every single step of their operation—from receiving raw meat to packaging and shipping the final product. For each identified hazard, the plan must outline the specific control measures, monitoring procedures, corrective actions, and verification steps, all supported by meticulous records.¹⁸

For a biltong producer, this requirement represents a nearly vertical cliff. To get a federal licence, they must attest that they have a PCP in place that proves their process is safe.⁶⁷ Because biltong doesn’t have a simple heat-kill step, this means scientifically validating that their specific combination of vinegar, salt, spice, and controlled air-drying consistently achieves a 5-log reduction of pathogens like

Salmonella.⁴⁰ This is not something that can be done with a thermometer and a clipboard. It almost invariably requires:

• Hiring expensive food safety consultants to help design the study and write the complex PCP document.
• Conducting laboratory “challenge studies,” where the product is intentionally inoculated with pathogens and tested throughout the drying process to prove the hurdles are effective. This is a costly and highly specialized process.

The investment required to create a federally compliant PCP for a traditional biltong process can easily run into the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars. This is a staggering sum for a small business, butcher, or entrepreneur. The federal system, while designed with the noble goal of ensuring a safe national food supply, is structured for large, industrial-scale processors. It creates a “scalability trap” where a small producer can succeed locally under provincial rules but is effectively barred from growing into a national brand. The cost and complexity of federal compliance create a chasm that most small businesses simply cannot cross.

The Inspector Lottery: “It Depends Who Shows Up”

Even for producers who attempt to navigate the provincial or federal systems, a final, frustrating hurdle remains: the sheer inconsistency of enforcement. With no clear, official regulatory category for biltong, the interpretation of the rules for “dried meat” is often left to the subjective judgment of the individual inspector who walks through the door.⁶⁸ This creates an environment of uncertainty that producers describe as the “inspector lottery.”

This is not just an anecdotal complaint; it is a systemic issue born from regulatory ambiguity. Discussions among food service professionals reveal a wild variance in inspection styles: one inspector might spend hours meticulously checking every detail, while another might give a cursory glance and leave in minutes. Some focus on trivial infractions, like condensation on a container lid, while missing more significant issues.⁷⁰ This inconsistency is magnified when the product itself exists in a regulatory grey area.

The chain of deferred authority exacerbates the problem. As a BC Centre for Disease Control report highlights, local health authorities seeking guidance on biltong are often referred to the CFIA, which in turn has historically relied on guidance from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for similar products.⁴⁰ This means a local inspector in Canada might be enforcing a rule based on a provincial interpretation of a federal guideline that is itself based on a foreign agency’s framework for a different product (jerky). This convoluted process is a recipe for confusion and contradictory rulings.

The March 2024 recall of Eat-Sum-More brand biltong, which was distributed in Ontario and sold online, serves as a stark case study. The recall was triggered after CFIA testing detected Salmonella in the product.⁷¹ This incident has a dual effect. On one hand, it validates the legitimate food safety concerns that regulators have about any RTE meat product made without a heat-kill step, reinforcing their cautious stance.⁴⁸ On the other hand, such a high-profile recall sends a chilling message to the entire industry. It increases the perceived risk associated with biltong, likely prompting inspectors to become even more conservative and stringent in their interpretations, further discouraging producers.

This cycle of fear and avoidance is corrosive. Faced with ambiguous rules and the threat of a career-ending judgment from a single inspector, many entrepreneurs become hesitant to invest, innovate, or even formally engage with the system.⁵⁰ Some may choose to operate in a “grey market,” selling their product informally to friends or at local markets to avoid the regulatory headache.⁷³ This behaviour, born of frustration, ultimately undermines the goal of public health by pushing production out of sight of the very system designed to ensure its safety.

Why This Matters: Culture, Commerce, and Common Sense

The regulatory quagmire surrounding biltong is more than just a bureaucratic inconvenience; it has significant cultural and economic consequences. For the vibrant community of South African expats in Canada, it means being cut off from a cherished cultural food or paying exorbitant prices for what little is available.⁴ The price of biltong in Canada is inflated not only by the high cost of Canadian beef and the significant weight loss during drying (it can take more than 2 kg of fresh meat to make 1 kg of biltong) but also by the immense hidden tax of navigating this complex and costly regulatory environment.⁷⁴

Economically, this system stifles the very entrepreneurship it should be encouraging. It blocks artisans and immigrants from starting and scaling businesses that serve a clear and passionate market, hindering innovation and economic growth in the food sector.⁵⁰

The path forward requires a fundamental shift in regulatory thinking. The core of the problem is that biltong is not jerky, and it is time for Canadian regulations to reflect that reality. The solution is not to weaken food safety standards, but to create a new, distinct regulatory category for air-dried, cured meats that is based on the actual science of the product.

Scientific studies, including those conducted at respected institutions like the University of Guelph, have demonstrated that a properly controlled biltong process, relying on hurdle technology, is safe and can achieve the required 5-log pathogen reduction without a heat step.⁴⁰ A modern, science-based framework for biltong should therefore focus on validating and monitoring the critical hurdles that ensure its safety—final water activity (

aw​), pH level, salt concentration, and a controlled drying environment—rather than defaulting to the one-size-fits-all mandate of a heat-lethality step.³⁷

An international precedent for this approach already exists. The Codex Alimentarius Commission, the global food standards body, has established a “Regional Standard for Dried Meat” (CXS 350R-2022).⁸¹ This standard, created for Africa, explicitly recognizes products like biltong and sets out requirements for their safe production. It demonstrates that it is possible to regulate these traditional products effectively without forcing them into an inappropriate category.

Conclusion: Unbinding Biltong

The story of biltong in Canada is one of cultural craving meeting regulatory confusion. Aspiring producers face a system that is a patchwork of conflicting provincial rules, scientifically misaligned with their product, and capped by a federal licensing regime that is practically impossible for small businesses to navigate. The result is a starved market, frustrated consumers, and stifled entrepreneurs.

The solution is clear: Health Canada and the CFIA must work with food scientists, industry stakeholders, and cultural communities to develop a sensible, science-based regulatory pathway for authentic, air-dried meats. Creating a distinct category for biltong that recognizes the principles of hurdle technology would not be a compromise on safety. On the contrary, it would bring producers out of the grey market and into a transparent, predictable system. It would foster innovation, support small businesses, and finally allow the thousands of biltong lovers across Canada to safely and affordably enjoy a true taste of home.

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