Government investigators have said that Canadian consumers can expect one of the largest food recalls in North America following reports about hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), an ingredient found to be contaminated with salmonella, which is used in thousands of processed foods.

This week in the U. S. 56 products and two in Canada have been recalled after detecting salmonella in the flavoring ingredient.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agencyis expecting the recall net to broaden as more work is being done with the Canadian clients of Basic Food Flavors, Inc. and importers of processed foods containing the ingredient.

The problem was identified last month by a customer when salmonella was found in supplies shipped from Basic Food Flavors. Following this, the FDA inspected the processing plant where the company's processing equipment was found having salmonella.

U. S. and Canadian authorities said that no illnesses have been reported so far.

CFIA spokesman Guy Gravelle said, “Since salmonella are destroyed when food is cooked to a safe internal temperature, the agency is working with the FDA to determine which products contain the potentially contaminated ingredient but do not include a step that would kill salmonella.”