Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, members of the committee, for having us here today.
My name is Ron Reaman, and I represent the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association. We represent approximately 33,000 restaurants across Canada. I did have the pleasure of appearing before the committee last fall, so I will keep my remarks very brief and not be too repetitive.
I just wanted to underscore for you today that the Restaurant and Foodservices Association and our membership are fully engaged in the issue of sodium reduction. We are a member of the Health Canada sodium working group, and we have continued to participate and support that group in its efforts to look at developing a national strategy for sodium reduction and ultimately to reduce the overall sodium intake of Canadians. We support the three key prongs of the terms of reference for that committee, which are, as I'm sure you are aware, a research component, a voluntary reduction in the sodium levels in food products, and also a comprehensive public education and awareness campaign.
I want to remind the committee that many food companies are already fully working on reducing and reformulating their products, their menu items for offer. We recognize our role in making that contribution to bringing down the overall sodium levels of Canadians. But we have to recognize some of the operational realities that confront our industry. As some of my colleagues have already mentioned, the really critical piece here is to ensure that we are working on a gradual, achievable strategy that actually reduces the sodium that Canadians are consuming.
One of the challenges that we face in the restaurant setting is if those products are not to the taste acceptance of our customers. At the end of the day, we are a consumer-demand-driven business. We offer for sale what our customers ask of us. It's really critical that we ensure that the palates of Canadians actually evolve to a point where that demand shifts to products that are actually saleable. Consumers have a choice at the end of the day, and they exercise that choice on a daily basis in our operations.
We're doing our part through voluntary reduction of sodium in menu items.
The other key point that I wanted to make to the committee is that with respect to the public education and awareness campaign it's our feeling that this is an absolutely critical piece the government needs to support through dedicated funding that actually achieves the public health outcome that we all share, which is to try to reduce the overall intake of sodium by Canadians.
I'll leave it at that and be open to questions.
Thank you.