Grocery stores can be a complex place to navigate at times, but it’s become a lot more confusing of late thanks to the threat of tariffs from US President Donald Trump and the ensuing response from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
And to be honest, the spitting match between the two countries matters little to Therese Chatelain when she’s out shopping. But she’s doing her part to support Canadian producers by attempting to keep her grocery dollars in the country.
At least, when she can. It’s not easy.
“I find it difficult right now when I’m at the grocery store to clearly identify what is a Canadian product and what is American,” she said. “It varies from product to product and from store to store with how easily you can identify those things. I know there are some products that I want to buy that aren’t made in Canada, but it’s really taking an effort to identify some products.”
Chatelain has started making herself a list of which products she wants and what the Canadian alternative for them is. She is doing her due diligence but it hasn’t been easy – the packaging isn’t always clear as to what is Canadian made versus what is simply packaged here. Key words from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency like ‘distilled, canned, refined, processed, and prepared’ indicate that those goods have undergone some form of preparation in Canada, while ‘packaged’ indicates that a food is likely imported in bulk and repackaged here. An example Chatelain ran into was jojoba oil.
“Sometimes places will advertise something as being made here but it’s not,” she said. “Now I know that jojoba oil comes from Colombia and I found a company from Guelph that sells it. I bought it and when I got home, I saw that it was only packaged in Guelph – it’s produced in the United States.”
While Chatelain is looking for some help from local retailers, there are some options. The Little Green Grocery on Downie Street has made it a goal to offer as much local produce as they can since they opened. Erin Kennedy, the grocery’s manager, said it hasn’t been a significant switch for them to carry Canadian products since a good portion of their stock is already home made.
“We have a lot of local produce that comes from around this area within southwestern Ontario,” she said. “There might be the perception that we’re small and don’t have everything shoppers might need, but we deal directly with our suppliers which can help give us an edge sometimes. And a lot of what we sell is much fresher.”
One thing The Little Green Grocery is doing right now is putting up red maple leaf stickers up on their shelves to indicate which products are Canadian. It offers that little extra help to people coming in who want to see their dollar help out at home.
“Since this all started, we’ve definitely been getting more people coming in and asking the question of what Canadian products we have, even from some of our regular customers,” Kennedy said. “People are happy to find out that a lot of our goods are Canadian. I couldn’t even put a number on what percentage of products we carry are Canadian, but I do know it’s pretty high.”
A block over at The Gentle Rain, they’re starting to see a growth in the same desire from their customers to purchase Canadian products. Store manager Nancy Telfer said they’ve focused their buying on local products for quite some time but there are times when they have to make a choice of re-stocking with a non-local item or simply letting it run out before replenishing it through a local supplier.
“For example, I can get squash from Mexico or I can just run out, so we’re running out of squash right now,” Telfer said. “It’s not an easy way to do business, but people want local goods. Right now it’s kind of hard – I’ve got a lot of stuff, like my romaine lettuce and all my greens, that I get out of the US. I can’t switch until the spring but as soon as I’m able to get supplied locally I will.”
Telfer said that the idea of putting up a maple leaf to help make identifying Canadian-made good easier is a great idea, and it will help people sort out their shopping that much quicker.
“When it comes to our supplements, we get a lot that are local and some from the US, and people want to go with the local ones,” she said. “There are some people that don’t care where they’re from, but if these tariffs come into effect the price might go up. You just don’t know.”
For Chatelain, there have been some surprises when it comes to identifying what is Canadian and what’s not, but she’s hoping that more stores will pick up the cues from the public and help make that process easier.
“Obviously, something like lemons is not an item you’re expecting to get from Canada, but I was surprised when I made the list of vegetables,” she said. “I hadn’t really put it together in my head that in winter we have more vegetables than we think we do from Canada. I just have to think about it when it comes to my shopping, but it would be nice if this information were easier to identify that a particular product is something we produce here in Canada.”