The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), the country’s food safety watchdog, has banned Costco Canada from importing fish into the North American nation after it found the retail giant isn’t consistently following food safety controls. The embargo was slapped following the importation of a small quantity of Italian canned tuna that didn’t go through the proper inspections.

Costco Canada had violated sections of the Fish Inspection Regulations pertaining to pickled, spiced, and marinated fish, the CFIA maintained. “The CFIA has determined that adequate controls for food safety are not being reliably implemented by the company on a consistent basis, which is in violation of the Fish Inspection Regulations,” the agency said on its website.

The license suspension has been effective since Feb. 26, 2015. No product recall were made in relation to the suspension.

With the suspension, the company cannot import fish products until the agency is certain and satisfied the firm has implemented the necessary changes. Specifically, Costco Canada erred when it failed to issue a written notification for each shipment of fish to an inspector either before or within 48 hours of importing the products. It further violated the rules when it moved without permission the imported fish.

Craig Wilson, Costco’s vice president responsible for food safety, admitted the violation. “It was an administrative error,” Wilson was quoted by WSJ. “We did it, there’s no two ways about it.” He said the suspension was prompted by the purchase of canned tuna from Asia.

Pietro Nenci, Costco’s vice president of corporate foods in Canada, said the company doesn’t use its fish import license very often because it is the venders who import 99.5 percent of the fish products in Costco stores. Consequently, they handle the CFIA inspections. That could have led the company to missing regulatory requirements, Nenci said.

“We realized that, oh my god, it’s not only one time, it’s a couple of times that this product has come into Canada. We thought we were doing the right thing. We were going through the process, and then realized after meeting with CFIA that we actually did not respect the process in the way were supposed to for various reasons,” Nenci said.

Wilson said Costco executives will meet with CFIA officials on possible “necessary actions” the company could make that will address the concern of the food watchdog. Wilson noted that in such meeting, they hope to regain the fish-importing license. Costco has 88 outlets in Canada, with 10 million members. In 2014, Costco Canada earned a revenue of $17.94 billion.

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