Canadianize your grocery list

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/07/2017 (3260 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Marnie Scott isn’t completely capable of explaining why she’s worked countless hours putting together the only listing of Canadian food and beverage products that are exclusively Product of Canada labelled or of similar Canadian content.

The website — canadiancoolfoods.com — is a non-commercial listing of truly Canadian products, from small craft enterprises making things like international cheeses, Saskatchewan gin and B.C. herbs, to popular items that we may not have even known were Canadian, like Canola Harvest, made by none other than Richardson International.

Each listing is given the same treatment. For instance, the listing for Canola Harvest canola oil is followed by Pristine Gourmet cold-pressed canola oil, made by a small company in Waterford, Ont. Each is exactly the same size in every respect, with a link to the respective company’s website.

Everything that is certified and labelled Product of Canada will be listed, and Scott uses some discretion in listing other products that have not gone through the labelling process but would likely otherwise be certified. The only other requirement is that the products be available for purchase online and/or via some retail outlet.

On the surface, that may sound like something that already exists. But it does not. And it is surprisingly challenging to track down such products. For instance, food processing associations in Canada are agnostic in their support of their producers irrespective of how much imported goods are contained in the product.

To top it all off, Scott has not taken a single step towards making canadiancoolfoods.com a commercially viable enterprise.

“Everyone is out there trying to take a piece of the action,” she said. “I don’t want to do that.”

At this point, it is strictly a labour of love.

“Maybe it will be my gift to Canada on its 150th anniversary,” she said. “Maybe it’s also a way to recognize what Canada began with. Let’s celebrate Canadian ag.”

Scott is a veteran independent industry consultant who does economic development work, most recently in the aerospace industry in Manitoba. But she has also worked in the agriculture sector, financial institutions and environmental industries.

Her passion for promoting Canadian foods is partly driven by her interests in regional economic development and her understanding of the jobs and wealth creation the agriculture industry is responsible for.

“I want the site to be useful to everybody,” she said. “Maybe its my economic development background, but I want to help to grow the economy.”

Canadian food products are heralded around the world as being of the highest quality.

For many years, the Canadian Wheat Board was always able to get top dollar for Canadian wheat and grains. The exploding middle class of consumers in China is said to covet any Canadian food products.

But at home, we rarely make a big deal of it, especially the true Canadian produce, as opposed to items labelled “Made in Canada” which could include plenty of imported ingredients.

When pressed, Scott says it irks her that grocery stores across the country probably only carry about one per cent Product of Canada items, not counting dairy and meats. And the retailers themselves likely don’t know or care. That’s even more motivation for her to do what she’s doing.

The idea is that the site can help consumers make informed online purchases, or learn more about a company. There is no fee for companies to list their products and the site does not sell products directly to consumers, nor does it collect a fee when visits to product sites result in sales.

One of Scott’s recent favourite listings is Black Fox Distillery, located on a farm outside of Saskatoon. The two-year-old operation grows most of the ingredients for its vodka, gin and liqueurs (the whisky isn’t done yet), and what it doesn’t grow, its neighbours do.

John Cote, the husband and father in the family business, said he can’t point to any sales as a result of Black Fox’s listing in canadiancoolfoods.com, but loves the spirit of the thing.

“We’ve been shipping Prairie produce in trains to other parts of the world for so long,” he said. “It’s great to be able to show how we’re capturing some of that processing value.”

When Scott launched the site in April, there were 1,350 listings. There are close to 2,000 now, and she will continue to look for more.

Ideally, she said, she will get some financial support from companies that benefit from the agriculture industry, like trucking companies or ag equipment companies, but she has no desire to make money from it and does not want to charge any company to be listed.

“I have to watch it though,” she said. “I need to go out and find some contract to work on.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca