Canada Matcha Import: Documents and Bilingual Labels

This article covers the Canadian import path for bulk Japanese matcha, and it is organized around one question: which items belong to your Japanese supplier's export pack, and which ones you must own as the importer of record in Canada. If your shipment is going to Australia instead, the DAFF and FSANZ route is a different structure and is handled in our article on Australian matcha import documents. If you are still at the stage of generic incoterms, HS classification and first-contact questions with a Japanese producer, start with importing matcha from Japan. And if you want the same transaction seen from the Japanese exporter's desk — what they prepare, what they can and cannot certify — read exporting Japanese green tea.

What follows assumes you have already settled grade and price and are now writing the purchase order.

The blocking item is almost never the tea

In our experience with Canadian accounts, shipments of bulk matcha rarely stall because of the product. They stall because two sets of obligations were never separated. Canada places the licence and the preventive control obligation on the importer under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations, while the only party who can generate the underlying analytical and compositional data is the producer in Japan. Neither side can complete the other's half.

Fix four things in the PO and the rest is routine broker work:

1. A certificate of analysis whose analyte list matches what your broker and your customer's QA team will actually ask for.
2. Lot code plus milling or packing date printed on every inner bag, so one-up/one-back traceability is possible without opening cases.
3. A full compositional specification detailed enough to build a Canadian Nutrition Facts table from.
4. Agreed bilingual English/French ingredient wording, fixed before artwork goes to the printer.

Your side: the SFC licence and what hangs off it

If you import food into Canada for commercial purposes, you generally need a licence under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations, issued through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's My CFIA portal. The licence is issued for specific activities and commodity groups, so a licence obtained years ago for a different product line may not cover importing a manufactured food such as tea powder. Check the activity entries on your existing licence against what you are about to do, and confirm the current requirement categories directly with CFIA: Safe Food for Canadians licences.

Attached to the licence are obligations you cannot delegate to your supplier:

• Preventive control plan. A written plan covering how you verify that the foreign supplier's product meets Canadian requirements. Your supplier's COA is an input to this plan, not a substitute for it.
• Traceability records. You must be able to identify who supplied the lot and to whom you sold it. This is why the lot format on the inner bag matters commercially, not just cosmetically.
• Importer identity on the label. The dealer name and Canadian address on the retail package is yours to declare.
• Storage conditions at your 3PL. Matcha degrades in color and aroma with heat, light and oxygen exposure — ordinary product knowledge, not a regulatory claim — so the temperature commitment in your warehousing contract is your decision, not the exporter's.

Their side: what only the Japanese producer can issue

Ask for these in the PO, in writing, before the first production run:

• COA with a named analyte list. Do not accept "COA available" as a line item. Specify what appears on it: moisture, particle size or mesh, total catechins if your customer markets on it, microbiological counts, and heavy metals if your retail account asks.
• Pesticide residue test scope. Japanese and Canadian residue limits are set independently, so a certificate showing compliance with Japanese limits does not by itself demonstrate compliance in Canada. Agree which panel is run and share it with your broker before shipping.
• Radionuclide testing, as a separate line. Several markets introduced import restrictions on Japanese food after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi accident, and many were subsequently lifted; the status of any given market changes over time. Confirm whether Canada currently applies any such measure to tea directly with CFIA and your broker at the time of shipment rather than relying on secondhand summaries. Independently of the regulatory position, some grocery and retail accounts ask for a radionuclide certificate as a private condition of listing, so establish early whether your customer wants one. The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries publishes information on export-related food safety measures: MAFF food safety.
• Compositional spec per 100 g. Energy, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrate, fiber, sugars, protein, sodium and the nutrients Canada requires in the Nutrition Facts table. If the supplier can only give you a partial spec, you cannot build a compliant panel, and you will find that out at artwork stage rather than at PO stage.
• Allergen and gluten statement. Pure matcha is a single-ingredient product, but the statement should address the milling and packing environment, not just the leaf.
• Lot and milling date format. Confirm the exact printed format and where it appears — inner bag, outer carton, or both.
• Packaging material declaration for the inner bag and any nitrogen flush, plus a packing list whose product wording is consistent with the tariff classification your broker intends to use for green tea.

On duty treatment: Japan and Canada are both parties to the CPTPP, but applicable rates and origin documentation depend on classification and on the arrangement claimed. Confirm the rate and the origin declaration requirements with your customs broker at the time of shipment. General import procedure references are published by the Canada Border Services Agency: CBSA import.

Bilingual labeling: settle the wording, not just the translation

Prepackaged foods sold in Canada generally require mandatory label information in both English and French, with limited exceptions. The mandatory elements — common name, net quantity, list of ingredients, Nutrition Facts table, dealer name and address, and durable life information where applicable — follow the rules set out in CFIA's Industry Labelling Tool, which is the reference to check for current requirements rather than any summary including this one.

Three things cause reprints on matcha specifically:

• Panel space. Mandatory information must appear in both languages, and matcha retail formats are small — 30 g and 40 g tins are common. Before approving artwork, take the finished English text block, produce the French equivalent, and measure both against the available panel area. That measurement, done on your own artwork, is the only number that matters; estimates from other product categories will not transfer.
• Ingredient wording that survives translation. Fix the pair you will use — for example "green tea powder / poudre de thé vert" — and use it identically across the ingredient list, the front panel and any marketing copy. Suppliers who describe the product differently on the COA than on the packing list create avoidable questions.
• Nutrition Facts derived from a real spec. The table is built from compositional data, and the rounding and formatting rules are Canadian. If your supplier's spec sheet is thin, this is the step that stops.

If a Quebec grocery listing is in scope, note that Quebec applies provincial French-language requirements to commercial products and packaging in addition to federal rules. Consult the Office québécois de la langue française and your label consultant on the current requirements before printing, rather than assuming the federal bilingual minimum is sufficient.

Timing: what to settle when

The checklist below is worth running as three separate conversations rather than one long email.

• Before the PO: SFC licence activity scope, COA analyte list, residue and radionuclide test scope, lot and milling date format, compositional spec per 100 g.
• Before artwork: bilingual ingredient wording, Nutrition Facts build, importer name and Canadian address, allergen and gluten statement, panel space measurement.
• Before landing: preventive control plan reference, packing list and classification wording, origin documentation for duty treatment, storage temperature commitment at the 3PL.

A short email to the supplier covers most of it: "Before we issue the PO, please confirm (1) the analyte list on your COA, (2) the residue panel run on this lot, (3) whether lot code and milling date are printed on each inner bag and in what format, and (4) whether you can provide a full compositional specification per 100 g including sodium and fiber. Please also confirm the exact product wording you use on the COA and packing list."

Next step

Every item above depends on one thing you can verify cheaply: whether the supplier can actually issue the spec and the lot format, not just promise them. Request a sample lot together with the full COA and compositional specification sheet, then test-build your bilingual label and Nutrition Facts table on that data before committing volume. Request a sample with the full specification sheet.

If you would like the specification sheet format checked against what your customs broker and retail account are asking for, send us their requirement list with the sample request and we will respond against it.

Regulatory requirements in Canada change periodically. This article describes requirement categories rather than specific clauses; confirm current requirements with CFIA, CBSA and your customs broker at the time of shipment.