Canada · Food, health product and consumer recalls
Canadian recall lookup, and what a recall class means.
Canada publishes food, health product, consumer product and vehicle recalls on one government site. This guide sends you to the right door and explains the class labels on food recalls.
Short answer: Search the Government of Canada’s recalls and safety alerts site, which covers food, health products, consumer products and vehicles. The open data file dated October 26, 2026 holds 34,290 records, 19,844 of them active, and 5,334 come from CFIA, of which Class 1 is 36.5%, Class 2 is 34.9% and Class 3 is 27.8%.
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One site, four kinds of recall
The Government of Canada’s recalls and safety alerts site presents itself as the place to find recalls, advisories and safety alerts. Its home page lists items across food, health products, consumer products and vehicles, labels each entry with its type, such as Health product recall, Consumer product recall or Vehicle recall, and offers a search box, a full recall listing, RSS feeds and email alerts. The home page also links the page for reporting a health or safety concern. The selector above sends you to each.
Open the recalls and safety alerts site ↗ Open the open data record ↗
Why there is no live search on this page
Health Canada publishes the full recall list as CSV and JSON files under the Open Government Licence - Canada, described as updated daily. When we requested the CSV on October 26, 2026 it was about 10.7 MB and the response carried no cross-origin headers, which means a web page like this one cannot load it in your browser to search it. Rather than copy the data or route your query through our servers, this guide links to the official search and publishes only counts.
Worked example: counts from the October 26, 2026 file
The English CSV, last modified October 26, 2026, has 34,290 records: 19,844 active and 14,446 archived. The recalls site’s home page reported 19,845 active and 14,446 archived at the time we read it, a one-record gap that is consistent with the file being published earlier in the day. Of the active records, Transport Canada accounts for 9,967 (all of its records are active), medical devices for 4,682, consumer product safety for 2,126, CFIA for 1,270, drugs and health products for 1,117, communications and public affairs for 442, marketed health products for 139 and controlled substances and cannabis for 100.
CFIA alone has 5,334 records in the file. By class, 1,949 are Class 1 (36.5%), 1,864 are Class 2 (34.9%) and 1,485 are Class 3 (27.8%), with 36 left blank or marked otherwise. Counts of that kind help you read one notice: a Class 1 recall is the biggest single group, so it is common rather than unusual, but it is the class CFIA defines by serious health problems or death.
What the food recall classes mean
CFIA’s page on how it decides to recall a food defines three classes. Class I: there is a high risk that consuming the food may lead to serious health problems or death. Class II: a moderate risk of short-term or non-life threatening health problems. Class III: a low risk of any undesirable health problems, a class that also covers food that poses no health risk but does not meet legislative requirements. Recall notices use both numeral styles, Class 1 in the data file and Class I on CFIA’s page, for the same classes.
That last clause matters when you read a Class 3 notice. It can describe a labelling or legislative problem as much as a health one, so the headline on the notice and its stated issue, such as an allergen or a pathogen, say more than the class alone.
Method
The selector looks up one fixed link and one fixed sentence per option, taken from the recalls site and CFIA’s page. The counts come from the English CSV, downloaded once on October 26, 2026 and tallied by organization and recall class; percentages are the count divided by the total, rounded to one decimal place. Nothing you pick is sent to our servers.
What this does not cover
- Whether a product you own is recalled. Search the official site for that.
- Recalls that postdate the October 26, 2026 file.
- Any recall record. This page copies none, only aggregate counts.
- Vehicle recall detail, which Transport Canada publishes and this page only counts.
- Advice on what to do with a recalled product. Follow the instructions on the notice itself.
Sources
- Government of Canada, Recalls and safety alerts (home page: categories, search, RSS, email alerts, record counts) (retrieved October 2026)
- Health Canada, Recalls and Safety Alerts open data (Open Government Licence - Canada) (retrieved October 2026)
- Health Canada, Recalls and Safety Alerts English CSV (counted October 26, 2026) (retrieved October 2026)
- CFIA, How we decide to recall a food (class definitions; date modified 2026-05-15) (retrieved October 2026)
Common mix-ups
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Often assumedA Class 3 food recall always means the food was a health risk.
What the source saysCFIA defines Class III as a low risk of any undesirable health problems, and says the class also covers food that poses no health risk but does not meet legislative requirements. [1]
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Often assumedThe government recall site only lists food recalls.
What the source saysThe Government of Canada recalls and safety alerts home page lists items across food, health products, consumer products and vehicles, each labelled with its type. [2]
Checked against these sources on .
Frequently asked questions
Where can I check a food recall in Canada?
Use the Government of Canada’s recalls and safety alerts site, which has a search box and a full recall listing covering food, health products, consumer products and vehicles.
Can I get recall alerts by email or RSS?
Yes. The recalls and safety alerts home page lists both email alerts and RSS feeds as subscription options.
What does Class 1 mean on a CFIA food recall?
CFIA defines Class I as a high risk that consuming the food may lead to serious health problems or death. Class II is moderate risk and Class III is low risk.
Does a Class 3 recall mean the food is safe?
Not exactly. CFIA defines Class III as a low risk of undesirable health problems, and the class also covers food that poses no health risk but does not meet legislative requirements.
Is the Canadian recall data available to download?
Yes. Health Canada publishes the Recalls and Safety Alerts dataset as CSV and JSON under the Open Government Licence - Canada, described as updated daily.
How many recalls are on the Government of Canada site?
The October 26, 2026 open data file holds 34,290 records, of which 19,844 are active and 14,446 are archived.
Why does this page not search the recalls for me?
The data file is large and served without cross-origin headers, so a page like this cannot load it in your browser. This guide links to the official search instead.
Guide only: not a government recall tool
This page is an unofficial guide. It is not run by the Government of Canada, Health Canada or the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, does not search or copy recall records, and nothing you pick is transmitted anywhere. For any product you own, use the official recalls site and follow the instructions on the notice. General information, not health advice.