In the midst of a looming trade war with the United States, a growing number of Brandon consumers have heard the siren call and started to search for made-in-Canada goods in the grocery aisles.

“There’s been a lot of customers asking for Canadian products ever since the projected tariffs,” said Dan Lange, food store manager for Heritage Co-op’s Richmond Avenue location in Brandon. “It’s our regular customer base looking for the Canadian product, yeah.”

Heritage Co-op, which operates five grocery stores in western Manitoba, has always had a certain segment of its customer base looking for local products.

But since U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to slap a 25 per cent general tariff on Canadian imports into the United States in March, a surge in Canadian pride has translated into a renewed interest in the twin bandwagons of “buy Canadian” and “buy local.”

“Some of our customers are certainly conscientious of where the product is being sourced from,” Heritage Co-op operations manager Reg Clarke said on Wednesday morning.

When it comes to customer habits, Clarke said there really are three kinds of customers. There are those who go about their regular buying habits without paying especial heed to Canadian-made products. Then there are a select few who are very committed to buying Canadian-made products only.

And at the midway point, there are the customers who have joined the “buy Canadian” bandwagon because it’s the patriotic thing to do, particularly now as the threat of across-the-board U.S. tariffs on Canadian products may only be a few weeks away.

“How long that’ll last? I’m not sure,” Clarke said. “But we are definitely seeing a lot of customers that are very conscientious about buying Canadian made or locally made products at this point in time.”

And when it comes to Canadian-made products, the locally owned Co-op grocery store has many products that are locally sourced or at least grown in Canada.

“We have thousands of local items in our stores now, and we will continue to support local,” Clarke said Wednesday. “I believe that Co-op is the only one out there that can truly own the story of local. We support local vendors as much as possible, so the farm to fork story, this is a story that the Co-op can hang their hats on.”

Canadians coming together to support Canadians is certainly a good news story, but it’s the silver lining on the dark economic cloud on the horizon.

Clarke says there’s no good way to spin it when it comes to the imposition of tariffs on Canadian goods, because in the end it’s just going to cost more for essentials.

“Whenever there’s tariffs on goods entering the U.S., it’s not good for Canada. It’s going to take a little while, but eventually, at the end of the day, what’s going to happen is the cost of goods are going to rise. That’s never good for a Canadian consumer.”

Down at Obermaier’s Sausage & Meats Ltd. on Rosser Avenue, owner Elliot Ryzner says the buy local and buy Canadian trends are definitely picking up.

“A lot of people, a lot of my friends, even my employees, they’re taking extra time, 20 minutes to a half an hour, to see if it’s made in Canada,” Ryzner said. “I have other friends doing the same thing.”

Although Obermaier’s carries some imported goods from Europe, and lamb from New Zealand, most of the store’s inventory are sourced either locally or from Canadian suppliers. That includes pork, chicken and beef.

“It is Canadian beef,” Ryzner said. “It’s all slaughtered and process in Alberta. I’m going to say that just about all of it is Canadian beef, because they do not bring up beef from the States to slaughter there. And it’s distributed all across Canada, as well as exported back into the States.”

Many of the source cattle are raised in Manitoba, with meat coming from several cattle producers in western Manitoba.

“They’re raised here, they’re finished here,” Ryzner said. “We have lots of local feed lots. We have one in Carberry, there’s another at Souris. I think there’s another one at Hamiota, which a longtime friend of mine has had. Those are the three big ones around here.”

And yet, while Canadians are looking to buy local product, Ryzner said that higher prices on store shelves has tempered some of that enthusiasm. The cost of meat, particularly, has risen over the years, and consumers are looking for good deals wherever they can get them.

“Everybody’s box shopping out there, trying to get a deal on this or that.”

The customer isn’t the only one looking for a break on costs. Ryzner says small local stores like his have been getting hammered with the rising costs of doing business, whether it be increased electricity rates with Manitoba Hydro, the need for higher salaries to pay living wages to staff. And since the COVID-19 pandemic, even his insurance coverage costs have doubled.

The threat of tariffs has only added to the concern because some of the packing material he uses comes from the United States.

“Plastic products, same thing. Styrofoam products … what’s going to happen after this tariff comes in, because most of our plastics and styrofoams, they’re made in the States. They’re going to come back up the channel.”

For the time being, Ryzner says sales have been slow, thanks mostly to the colder temperatures. Warmer weather always brings out the barbecue fans, and he’s hoping this summer will be better than the last two.

“It’s all about barbecue. When it’s game on, when you can pull that barbecue out of the snow bank and you’ve got Manitoba sunshine and it’s warm enough, they’re barbecuing.”

The change in seasons also affects Canadian travel habits, says Cassandra Jamieson, owner of McPhail Travel in Brandon. With Manitoba in the midst of a cold weather snap, Jamieson says there are customers down south right now taking advantage of the warm weather in the southern United States. But many of these customers had purchased travel packages before Trump began threatening tariffs on Canadian goods.

At the same time, with spring only a few weeks away, the travel industry is beginning to transition out of the normal hot spot destination mode.

“We kind of finish up that phase of the first quarter of the year, and we move into what we call our summer season, being primarily Canadian and/or Europe-based,” Jamieson said. “But at the same time, I would definitely say Canadians are starting to prioritize travel within Canada, or to destinations that are primarily more affordable, where their dollar goes a bit further.”

Among the largest destinations in Canada for Canadians is the Maritime provinces for family travel or those who are semi-retired, followed by the Rocky Mountains and British Columbia.

Jamieson herself loves to travel with her family and she often thinks about going down to Minneapolis and taking her kids to the Mall of America. But in light of recent events, she’s rethinking her own plans, too.

“I’m looking at that and thinking, well, why are we not exploring Canada a little bit more? And it’s made me think about where I can take my children in Canada that they would really enjoy, and we could experience it as a family and keep our money local.”

While there are still customers who are looking at travel in the United States — and she would never presume to talk them out of such a trip — she says there is a definite shift in thinking among Canadian consumers.

“It may not last for years to come,” Jamieson said, “but definitely people are choosing to travel, or starting to choose to travel locally.”

» mgoerzen@brandonsun.com

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