After President Donald Trump announced massive tariffs on  Canadian goods, Canadian grocers have began to emphasize importance of Canadian products

After President Trump announced tariffs on Feb 1, some Canadian store managers, such as Jory Dyck, the assistant grocery manager at the Sherwood Co-op Food Store located on Quance Street, responded by stressing the importance at his store.

“We try to promote local business as best as we can, by giving them a lot of display space and give customers the choice of choosing local products over worldwide items, “ said Dyck. After the announced tariffs, Dyck said he “went through all our displays and chose to focus primarily on products made in Western Canada or privately labeled products.”

For consumers, they have a wide variety of local and Canadian made items ranging from items such as Holy Crap cereal from B.C, Kitako Lake Honey, which is located in the hamlet of Lac Vert, which is a 2 hour and 30 min drive from Regina.

The store changed their freezer displays to feature prominent Regina owned and operated companies and products such as Chef Malcolm’s Pies, Nicky’s Café’s frozen dinners, Tumblers Pizza and Mom’s Perogies, all are locally owned and operated companies.

“There’s definitely a lot of pride that they take into the quality of their work,” said Dyck. Dyck acknowledged possible concerns about prices of certain local items but stated that “some items are a little higher than anything you’d find compared, but the quality is much superior.”

Local consumers, such as Lorrie Hanna-Johnson, are happy to see the store taking the initiative. ” I want to support Canada and Canadian products to keep our country strong and free from American economic force, ” said Hanna-Johnson.

Other consumers, such as Mason Elford said they “hope Canadian consumers will realize that buying local isn’t above their budget.”

As for how to tell which products are Canadian, Dyck also laid out how consumers can tell where the products come from, by noting the stores flyers tell consumers where to buy the products.  He also ensured is that all of shelves located in the grocery section now have stickers that display when a product is from a province in Western Canada.

“We won’t display American made products as prominently, but nothing is going to get removed, “ said Dyck, when asked about if the store plans remove certain American made goods.

Hunter Reichel, the store’s meat supervisor, expressed concerns about the impacts of tariffs on both countries. They’re having supply shortages of beef and certain beefs down there,” said Reichel. Reichel noted that both the tariffs and beef shortages would cause “their beef prices would skyrocket, compared to ours. Yes we would be affected, but they would be screwing themselves over more,”.

Reichel empathized the importance of Canadian brands, calling his products citing that many meat brands are Canadian and Sask. Made, including Western Canadian brands such as Harvest and Grimms. Reichel also noted many Sask. brands such as Ottenbreit Sausage from Grayson, Duck Lake Sausage and Drake meats located inside the town of Drake.

Reichel hopes that Canadian consumers will continue to support local business, regardless of the tariffs and it shows consumers “take pride in our Canadian products.”