Notice of Modification to the List of Permitted Food Additives with Other Accepted Uses  to Enable the Use of  
Calcium Chloride as a Meat Tenderizing Agent in Certain Standardized Meat Products   
Bureau of Chemical Safety, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch     1 
  
Notice of Modification to the List of Permitted Food 
Additives with Other Accepted Uses  to Enable the Use of 
Calcium Chloride as a Meat Tenderizing Agent in Certain 
Standardized Meat Products  
Notice of Modification – Lists of Permitted Food Additives   
Reference Number: [NOM/ADM -0096 ] 
 
 
 May 3, 2017   
Notice of Modification to the List of Permitted Food Additives with Other Accepted Uses  to Enable the Use of  
Calcium Chloride as a Meat Tenderizing Agent in Certain Standardized Meat Products   
Bureau of Chemical Safety, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch     2 Summary  
 
Food additives are regulated in Canada under Marketing Authorizations  (MAs) issued by the 
Minister of Health and the Food and Drug Regulations .  Approved food additives and t heir 
permitted conditions of use are set out in the Lists of Permitted Food Additives  that are 
incorporated by reference in the MAs and published on Health Canada’s website . A petiti oner 
can request that Health Canada approve a new food additive or a new condition of use for an 
already approved food additive by filing a food additive submission with the Department's Food 
Directorate. Health Canada uses this premarket approval process to determine whether the 
scientific data support the safety of food additives when used under specified conditions in foods 
sold in Canada.  
 
Health Canada received a food additive submission seeking approval for the use of calcium 
chloride to tenderize cuts of beef and lamb meat . In this process, a 2.2% solution of calcium 
chloride is injected into the meat at a level of 5% by weight, immediately or within 24 hours 
after slaughter.  
 
Calcium chloride already has a number of permitted food additive uses in  a variety of foods but 
there are no provisions for its use in meat products . The results of Health Canada’s evaluation of 
available scientific data support the safety of the requested use of calcium chloride as a meat 
tenderizing agent in cuts of beef and  lamb meat, as requested by the petitioner . Therefore, Health 
Canada has modified the List of Permitted Food Additives with Other Accepted Uses  to enable 
this use of calcium chloride by adding the entries shown below to the list.  
 
Modification to the List of Permitted Food Additives with Other Accepted Uses   
 
Item 
No. Column 1  
Additive  Column 2  
Permitted in or 
Upon  Column 3  
Purpose of use  Column 4 
Maximum Level of Use and 
Other Conditions  
C.3.01  Calcium 
Chloride  (2) Cuts of 
prepared meat  
(Division 14)  (2) Meat 
tenderizing agent  (2) Good Manufacturing Practice 
provided that:  
(a) i) when sold as a cooked 
product, the meat contains a meat 
protein content of not less than 12 
per cent;  
ii) when sold as an uncooked 
product, the meat contains a meat 
protein content of not less than 10 
per cent;  
(b) a bone or a visible fat layer is 
not included in any calculation 
used to determine meat protein 
content f or the purposes noted in 
(a) i) and (a) ii) above   
Notice of Modification to the List of Permitted Food Additives with Other Accepted Uses  to Enable the Use of  
Calcium Chloride as a Meat Tenderizing Agent in Certain Standardized Meat Products   
Bureau of Chemical Safety, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch     3  
A cut of beef that is injected with a solution containing calcium chloride is considered to have 
been mechanically tenderized as defined in Section B.01.001 of the Food and Drug Regulations  
(Regulations ). Therefore, beef products treated in this manner will be subject to the additional 
labelling req uirements set out for mechanically tenderized beef in B.14.022 of the Regulations . 
 
Rationale  
 
Health Canada’s Food Directorate completed a premarket safety and efficacy assessment of the 
requested use of calcium chloride . Calcium chloride has a stimulatin g effect on calpain, an 
enzyme that is naturally present in meat and which catalyzes a reaction that breaks down 
structural meat proteins . This is the reaction that is responsible for tenderizing meat during aging.  
The addition of calcium chloride increas es the rate at which this occurs.  
 
The safety assessment considered the toxicological and nutritional aspects of this additive, and 
found that the requested use is acceptable from a food safety perspective. The amount of 
additional calcium in meat as a res ult of treatment with calcium chloride does not contribute 
substantially to total dietary intake of calcium.  
 
Adding a calcium chloride solution to cuts of prepared meat will result in the meat retaining 
water. Consequently, tenderized meat that has been t reated with a calcium chloride solution is 
required to have the same minimum protein content that is required for solid cut meat treated 
with lactate salts or phosphate salts . The labelling requirements set out in B.01.090, B.01.091, 
and B.01.092, which ap ply to solid cut meat to which water has been added, therefore also apply 
to meat products treated with calcium chloride and that are presented as cuts of meat . These 
minimum meat protein content and labelling requirements are in place to address the conce rns 
that increased water retention could negatively impact the nutritional quality of meat products.   
 
The use of this additive is self -limiting because treating the meat with solutions containing 
higher concentrations of calcium chloride would negatively  affect the taste of the meat . The 
minimum protein content requirements also serve to limit the amount of calc ium chloride that 
may be used. Based on these considerations, as well as the low toxicity of calcium chloride, the 
maximum level of use has been e stablished at levels consistent with “Good Manufacturing 
Practice”.  
 
Since no food safety concerns were identified by the premarket assessment, Health Canada has 
enabled the use of calcium chloride as a meat tenderizing agent, with conditions of use that 
include minimum protein requirements for solid cut meat products in particular, by modifying 
the List of Permitted Food Additives with Other Accepted Uses  as shown in the above table.  
 
Other Relevant Information  
 
The Food and Drug Regulations  require that food additives such as calcium chloride that do not 
have food -grade specifications set out in Part B of the Regulations meet the most recent food - 
Notice of Modification to the List of Permitted Food Additives with Other Accepted Uses  to Enable the Use of  
Calcium Chloride as a Meat Tenderizing Agent in Certain Standardized Meat Products   
Bureau of Chemical Safety, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch     4 grade specifications set out in the Food Chemicals Codex  or the Combined Compendium of Food 
Additive Specifications . The Food Chemicals Codex  is a compendium of standards for purity and 
identity for food ingredients, including food additives, published by the United States 
Pharmacopeial Convention . The Combined Compendium of Food Additive Specifications  is 
prepared by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and published 
by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.  
 
Implementation and Enforcement  
 
The above modification came into force May 3, 2017 , the day it was published in List of 
Permitted Food Additives with Other Accepted Uses . 
 
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is responsible for the enforcement of the Food and Drugs 
Act and its associated regulations with respect to foods.  
 
Contact Information  
 
Health Canada's Food Directorate is committed to reviewing any new scientific information on 
the safety in use of any food additive, including calcium chloride . Anyone wishing to submit 
new scientific information on the use of this additive or to submit any inquiries may do so in 
writing, by regular mail or electronically . If you wi sh to contact the Food Directorate 
electronically, please use the words " calcium chloride " in the subject line of your e -mail.  
 
Bureau of Chemical Safety, Food Directorate  
251 Sir Frederick Banting Driveway  
Tunney’s Pasture, PL: 2202C  
Ottawa, Ontario , K1A 0L2  
E-mail: bcs-bipc@hc -sc.gc.ca