By Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Looking to shop Canadian when it comes to food? A new website gives you that option

Jul 16, 2018 | 5:30 AM

ALBERTA – During a time of uncertainty when it comes to trade wars and tariffs, one business and economic development specialist says it’s never been easier to Canadianize your grocery shopping to support Canadian industries.

Marnie Scott says she has always been driven to make good things happen in Canada for Canadians, and that’s why she created Canadiancoolfoods.com.

“I did a lot of travelling outside the country in the past few years. When I came home, I started to pay more attention to the origins of the food I was eating. As I looked for Canadian products I found a lot of different labelling from ‘Packaged in Canada’ to ‘Grown in Canada’ to ‘Made in Canada with Imported and Domestic Ingredients’ and I saw Maple Leafs all over the place,” Scott said, adding she researched what those all meant, including ‘Product of Canada’.

In that research, Scott discovered that Product of Canada is about as Canadian as you can get – requiring 98% Canadian ingredients, labour and processing.

“I contacted all sorts of organizations and government departments for a list of Product of Canada Foods and Beverages – but none seemed to exist,” she continued. So, I decided to make a list for myself and as I was checking out the labels in the grocery stores, it was obvious shoppers were wondering what I was doing.”

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Once she told them, Scott says several of them started to request her list and she even started to point out Product of Canada products to interested people as well.

That personal list eventually grew into the Canadiancoolfoods.com website concept, which became the site itself.

Scott says it took a couple of years to identify products, speak with the companies, and create what she hopes is an informative and useful site.

“I initially made the decision that I only wanted Product of Canada. As I spoke with companies and developed the list, I decided to give some leeway because some companies haven’t gone through the certification process and others wouldn’t qualify because they were slightly under the 98%. There are a lot of things we just can’t or don’t produce in Canada such as spices and additives, so I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t eliminating companies who were really making the effort.”

Most but not all products on the site are Product of Canada.

As conversations with different companies continued, Scott says she was also getting requests for information on Canadian substitutions for imported ingredients for their own food and beverage products.

“At this point, I decided to expand the site from consumer products to ingredient and bulk suppliers,” she added.

But even though the idea of shopping Canadian has become more prevalent due to events in the world recently, Scott says this is something people should be thinking about regardless of trade issues.

“We should be supporting our Canadian economy because when you do that you’re supporting everything. Whether it’s infrastructure, education, you name it, shopping local products means the tax dollars stay local,” Scott stated.

When the site was just beginning, Scott thought she was doing great having just 200 products but now there’s over 3,000, including 352 products from 45 companies in Alberta.

“The website is not an online grocery store but rather an information platform which links the products in the Shopping List to the company’s own website, where people online site can make informed purchase decisions or simply learn more about the Canadian company and their products.”

It’s a free service to all companies and interested users, that Scott believes can benefit everyone.

To use the site, you just go to the Shopping List page where you will find a number of options.

“To start with, you can simply type in what you are looking for into the search bar and hit search,” Scott continued. “Say for instance you type in Flax and also select the Organic filter – all of the organic flax will come up and surprise – there you’ll see Farmers Own Organic Flax products along with many others.”

If you want to find out more about where to buy the product, for example, all you have to do is simply click on the product name or image.

Anyone wanting to find out where you can purchase the product, you simply click on the “Buy Retail” or “Buy Online” links and you are taken directly to Farmers Own Website.

And if you’d like to see all of the products of a single company – click on the Company Name.

There’s also an option to create a list of products you’re interested in by adding the product to the Wish List which can be printed out to help with your own shopping.

You can also use the shopping categories to find products, you just need to make sure the old search is cleared before you start a new one. 

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