Buy Canadian draws more shoppers to local farmers' market
Grant (left) said since the start of the year, he has also seen a 25 per cent increase in sales. Photo: Lauryn Mackenzie / CHLY 101.7fm
Editor’s note: Interviews with farmers’ market shoppers can be heard in the audio version.
When threats of a trade war between Canada and the United States at the beginning of this year started to grow, a lot of Canadians stopped and took a closer look at where their produce was coming from.
Now, many Nanaimoites are turning away from large grocery store chains to shop at more local markets.
Michele Greene, market manager for the Island Roots Market Co-Operative, a year-round market that happens every Wednesday at Beban Park.
She said since January, the market has seen a 30 per cent increase in customers.
“I think people were really seeking local, and they know when they walk through our gates that they don't have to check labels,” Greene said. “They know everything's local here.”
The market sells a lot of locally grown produce, baked goods, and hand-crafted items. Many of the vendors are from the Nanaimo area, with some coming from Victoria and the Southern Gulf Islands.
She said that since tariffs were first introduced, more people have started shopping at the market.
“Everybody here has to make it, bake it, grow it or forage it locally. So all the vendors are local, and they all grow locally,” she said. “I make sure as much as I can. It's easy to tell when someone's reselling. We don't allow reselling.”
The market is year-round, so what is sold here depends on the season. Greene said some of the vendors have been able to find ways to extend their growing season or protect the vegetables, offering locally-grown produce longer into the season.
“People aren't as aware of seasons until they start shopping at a market, like I certainly wasn't before I worked here,” she said. “People will come up and ask for potatoes when they're not in season yet. There is a lot of ‘why don't you have fruit in January?’”
It wasn’t just farmers' markets that were emphasizing Canadian produce.
Grocery stores, big and small, have joined the Buy Canadian movement with ads, offers, and promotions of Canadian products.
But how Canadian is the produce these grocery stores bring in?
That’s what Tod Maffin wanted to find out
“I remember at the start of this, you couldn't find any salad kits or any lettuce that wasn't American, and now I'm seeing only salad kits that are from Canada,” Maffin said.
On his grocery runs, he started noticing that not all stores were equal. Some had a big focus on selling Canadian produce, but others did not. So Maffin decided he wanted to write a report for his newsletter, figuring out where the produce being sold in Nanaimo grocery stores was coming from.
Maffin, who became a local celebrity in Nanaimo after organizing a mass visit of Americans to spend a weekend in Nanaimo, went to eight different grocery stores in the city and audited where each type of produce came from.
“We will see in the stores what we buy as a community. So if we want to see more Canadian produce in the store, or to be a little more accurate, if we want to see less American products in the store, we need to be buying less American products,” he said. “Those numbers, those sales numbers, are what the stores use to determine whether or not they're going to buy it.”
He used two clickers and over two days in July, noted down where the produce came from. He determined where the produce came from based on “product of,” “made in,” or similar labels. Products listed with “packaged in” or “imported by” were not considered.
Maffin found that despite splashy “Shop Canadian” advertising, 40 per cent of items counted at all eight stores were labelled as American, or the country of origin could not be determined.
The stores with the most American produce tended to be the larger chain grocery stores like Walmart, Paterson-owned grocery stores like Save-On-Foods, and the Real Canadian Superstore.
“It was, obviously, a lot higher [than expected]. More than 40 per cent were American or ambiguous,” Maffin said. “So that's disappointing, especially when we are in a season where there's a lot of Canadian fruit available right now. We're in the growing season, so I was disappointed to see that.”
CHLY reached out to the grocery stores featured in Maffin’s report. Three of the companies replied to CHLY by email, sending statements about their work to make sure Canadian produce is sold in their stores.
Walmart Canada and Loblaws, which owns Real Canadian Superstore, each sent statements to CHLY.
A spokesperson from Walmart Canada said that as part of their ongoing commitment to support local growers and meet customer demands year-round, they offer both local and imported produce.
Loblaws, told CHLY, they have a program and partnerships in place to bring in local produce from Vancouver Island and the rest of the province wherever they can, including bringing in B.C.-grown cherries, when imported cherries would be cheaper.
In the report, Maffin also found that independently owned grocery stores had the lowest percentage of American produce, with Fairway Market, Country Grocer, and the Nanaimo Fruit & Vegetable Market having the lowest percentage of American produce.
Paul Sandhu, Country Grocer's Director of Produce Operations, told CHLY that Country Grocer's policy is to buy produce from Vancouver Island first, then from B.C., then from elsewhere.
Sandhu said, "The only items we carry from U.S.A. would be items that are not available here or offshore during growing seasons, such as currently Watermelon, Grapes [and a] few other items.”
Aaron Grant has been a full-time farmer for over five years, selling a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and tending a two-acre farm.
“We harvest most of the stuff the day of the market. I bake the baked goods and do my canning in my own kitchen and stuff,” Grant said. “It's definitely from our farm here in Nanaimo. We're the closest farm to the farmer's market, actually, just 10 minutes away.”
The Island Roots Market has always been where a majority of his sales are made. He said since the start of the year, he has also seen a 25 per cent increase in sales.
“It's come across in discussion that people are deciding to buy local and looking for local carrots and looking for local onions and things,” he said. “There have certainly been people who have been commenting that that's their primary reason to come to the market for the first time. A lot of first-timers have been coming through the farmers' market.”
As Canadians are deciding where to put their money when it comes to produce, and grocery stores are choosing to bring in more local produce into their stores, Maffin said, maybe one day Canadians will have an easier time deciding to shop Canadian.
“I mean, obviously, I'd like us to get to a point where we have no American product, produce or otherwise. The reality is, we're never going to get there, because there are just some things that simply do not grow in Canada, and some people do want the choice. We should have that for people,” Maffin said. “None of this is to suggest that, regardless of your economic circumstances, you should go into debt or be put in a precarious financial position just for this “Buy Canada” thing. Some people can only afford the cheapest products, and often those are American products.”
Maffin said he hopes this report reminds Canadians that next time they are grocery shopping, to take a closer look at where the produce is coming from.
Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.