Agriculture committee  Well, a nectarine is a rather interesting story, because most of the varieties are American nectarines that we've transplanted over here and have taken off. In lots of the other areas, nectarines are basically 50% of the markets—it's 50% peaches, 50% nectarines. We're likely about 30:70 in Canada right now, so it's fairly attractive.

Agriculture committee  That's correct. We initially got nectarines brought in as a test. We were told we would have a grade schedule out there. It was supposed to be completed in the last year or two, after 14 years. Instead, we were just sent something that said it would continue on as a test.

Agriculture committee  The holdup is at the CFIA. We've put in all the documentation. The industry has sent everything in to the CFIA, so it just needs approval.

Agriculture committee  It went in, I would say, four or five years ago, at least, and we were told it would be completed by this year.

Agriculture committee  Our retailers in that had great concern because they would not be able to advertise the product as “Canada No. 1” as far as the grade is concerned. Even though all our cartons and containers are printed ahead of time, we would have had to somehow redo all those cartons and containers, so we wouldn't have been able to have them labelled as Canada No. 1.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely not. It's a grading issue. It's things like sizing or marks, or something like that. It's basically to get something across someone's desk and get it accomplished.

Agriculture committee  No. There's been nothing, other than it's the Safe Food for Canadians Act that they're working on.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today. My name is Phil Tregunno. I'm the chair of the Ontario Tender Fruit Growers. Our organization represents all growers of stone fruit and pears across Ontario, with a farm gate value in 2023 of over $85 million. I myself am a fruit grower.