Service
Product Registration
Registering a food product is not filling in a form. It is building a file out of documents that live in different places, filing it in the destination country through a company licensed to do that, and filing it against the right product category. Get the category wrong and the whole file comes back. Most of the work is making sure nothing is missing the first time, which is unglamorous and is what decides how long it takes.
What’s included
- Category determination, confirmed with the destination regulator’s published classification before the file is built
- A document checklist specific to your product and market, so nothing is discovered missing halfway through
- Dossier assembly and technical review before filing
- Coordination with your in-market licence holder, or with a holder we help you appoint
- Management of the regulator’s questions and any resubmission
- Handover of the granted registration details, and what has to happen to keep it current
Commercial terms
- Fee range
- Scoped per engagement
- Typical timeline
- Confirmed at scoping
Questions
- How long does registration take?
- It varies by market, by category and by how busy the regulator is, and we will not quote you a number we cannot source. Each market hub on this site carries the processing authority for every step and, where we have verified it against a published service standard, the typical duration with that source and its date. Where we have not verified it, the page says so rather than guessing.
- Can you file it in our name rather than the distributor’s?
- That depends on the market, and it is the single most consequential structural decision in the whole process. Some markets require a locally established entity to hold the filing; others do not. Where you cannot hold it directly there are usually structures that keep control with you. That is a separate engagement (see Registration Ownership Structuring) and it is worth settling before the dossier is filed, not after.
- What happens if the regulator rejects the file?
- Most files are not rejected outright; they come back with questions. We handle the response and the resubmission as part of the engagement. What we are trying to avoid is the avoidable round trip, which is why category determination happens before anything else.
- Do we need a separate registration for each product variant?
- Usually yes, and this is where costs are underestimated. Flavour variants, pack sizes and reformulations are frequently treated as separate filings. We tell you the count for your range at assessment stage so the budget reflects the actual number of files, not one.
Read before you brief us
The reasoning behind this work, written out in full and free to read. You will brief us better for having read it, and you may decide you do not need us for part of it.
- Twelve Canadian products we believe could travel well
A shortlist, with the tariff position under each one. Some are obvious and priced accordingly. The interesting ones are where a high general rate meets a preference, because that is where an agreement does commercial work rather than paperwork.
- Why Canadian oats belong in premium Asian breakfast brands
Vietnam charges nothing on raw oats and 15 per cent on rolled ones. CPTPP takes the rolled line to free, which is what makes it possible to export the branded product rather than the raw grain and hand the milling margin to somebody in-market.
- Canadian ingredients for functional beverages
Frozen wild blueberries face 30 per cent into Vietnam at the general rate and nothing under CPTPP. Whey protein and lactose are already free there. For a formulator building a drink, that is the difference between a Canadian ingredient and a substitute.
- Why maple is more than pancake syrup
Bulk and retail maple share one tariff line and are two completely different businesses. The customs schedule cannot tell them apart; the regulator, the buyer and your margin all can, and choosing which one you are in is the decision that sets everything else.
- Canadian private-label products for premium grocery retailers
Private label removes the hardest part of exporting a brand and adds a question most producers never think about: when the pack carries the retailer name and the registration sits with an importer, what exactly do you own?
- Which Canadian halal certifiers Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore actually recognise
Four Canadian bodies appear on at least one of the three recognition lists. Only one appears on all three. A producer holding the wrong certificate has a valid certificate and no market, and the gap is invisible until a consignment is stopped.
Markets this covers
Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia