Want to buy Canadian? There's an app for that
Entrepreneurs across the country creating barcode-scanning apps for Canadian items
Picture this: You're wandering around the grocery store, trying to buy Canadian. That carton of blueberries is a no go — and that loaf of bread doesn't make the cut, either. The juice you wanted to buy was made in Canada … using imported ingredients.
Wouldn't it be great if your phone could just magically tell you whether the products you want to buy are Canadian or not? Well, now it can — thanks to savvy entrepreneurs across the country who've created apps meant to help shoppers identify the origin of everyday staples.
There's Shop Canadian, the brainchild of two software developers in Edmonton; Buy Beaver, which was dreamt up by two Montreal entrepreneurs; O SCANada, created by a mother and son in Calgary; and Maple Scan, an AI-powered tool made by a Calgary researcher. All four apps have a feature that lets shoppers scan an item's barcode to determine how Canadian it is.
"We saw on social media a lot of different lists of products being shared. They were not always correct, so we thought we had to find a way to centralize all of this information," said Alexandre Hamila, one of the co-creators of Buy Beaver.
After a user scans the barcode of a product, the Buy Beaver app rates how Canadian the product is on a scale of one to five based on several criteria: where it's made, where the ingredients or materials are from and who owns the brand.
"Right now, everything is community-driven," explained Christopher Dip, the app's other co-creator. "So if you can scan a product and it says it's not rated yet, then you are able to rate it and give your own info. And as more people vote, we expect the scores to get more and more accurate.
"If the product's properly labelled, you technically don't need our app. But you might need our app to know if the parent company is an American one or not. Some people might argue that even if it's a product of Canada and it's supporting Canadian jobs, if the profits go back to the U.S., then that might be something to consider," added Dip.
"But we just give that info to the community, and they can make a decision if they want to buy that product or not."
Like Dip and Hamila, the Edmonton-based creators of Shop Canadian say they were inspired by a growing movement to buy Canadian — one that emerged in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats against this country.
"We were in our kitchen, and I was trying to figure out if what I was eating was Canadian and I had to jump through several hoops," said William Boytinck, who developed Shop Canadian with his business partner, Matthew Suddaby. "And eventually I came up with the idea."
The duo's "wildest dream" was to keep a few hundred dollars in Canada, but the app has since blown up, and now relies on crowdsourced information. It searches through a database of company-registered product codes, and then shows the user whether the brand that made the product is registered in Canada, the U.S. or elsewhere.
There are still a few kinks to work out, especially as high traffic leads to technical difficulties. Plus, Boytinck and Suddaby are trying to decide how purist the app will be in determining whether something is Canadian or not.
"If it's imported by a Canadian company and packaged in Canada, sometimes we'll recognize it as Canadian," said Boytinck.
Retailers hearing demands for Canadian products
When the economy gets tough or the supply chain is disrupted, people pay more attention to where their money is going, said Michael Mulvey, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Ottawa's Telfer School of Management.
The "Buy Canadian" apps that have recently cropped up are "a way to make a more educated consumer, a more demanding consumer," he said, adding that a crowdsourcing approach used by the likes of Buy Beaver and Shop Canadian also helps people feel more engaged during times of crisis.
"Often people feel sort of helpless when all the world's spinning around them, and this is a way for them to take action and have a voice," said Mulvey. "And I think that's a positive thing in democracy."
There could be a trade-off between the consumer's preferred product and the one that costs less to buy, adds Mulvey. People might have to look at their wallets and decide if they want to pay the voluntary tax presented in front of them, and "there's going to be a lot of people who just can't afford to partake at this moment."
Will brands and retailers take the hint? At the very least, the demand for these tools might force companies to listen. Loblaws, for example, is already showcasing products made in Canada in stores, online and in flyers, the grocery giant's spokesperson Catherine Thomas recently told The Canadian Press.
And Pierre St-Laurent, chief operating officer of Sobeys and Safeway owner Empire, said customers are asking where products come from. The grocer is responding with more signage and information to help them make their picks.
"Retailers — if there's demand by customers to find Canadian goods, which there seems to be — I think it's in their interest to help them find those goods and help their search processes," said Mulvey.
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With files from Vanessa Lee, Mark Connolly and The Canadian Press