We continue to shun the United States
Canadians continue to shun the United States as its leader maintains his frenetic flip‑flopping from tariffs on to tariffs off to tariffs on again.
My only personal sacrifice is in boycotting American cherries. I adore cherries but the supply here is all from the U.S., and I couldn’t enjoy them. Anyway, the local strawberries and raspberries are fantastic this season.
CE 14:06 on 2025-07-10 Permalink
Even before the boycotts, I never understood why we import berries from the US during berry seasons. Why anyone would buy those big tasteless California strawberries that are white inside when there are delicious local berries right beside them is beyond me, especially considering they’re usually both sold at around the same price.
Blork 14:31 on 2025-07-10 Permalink
I know! It’s one thing to sell imported berries off-season (I personally don’t buy them) but it weird that they keep selling them during the berry season. Last week a small tub of really good local strawberries was $1.99 at Provigo, while the Driscoll imported berries were still on the shelf at more than double the price.
Weirdest of all is that I actually saw someone buy the imported ones!
Nicholas 14:32 on 2025-07-10 Permalink
CE, my guess would be there aren’t enough. Either due to not enough planted or not enough workers to pick them.
Blork 16:10 on 2025-07-10 Permalink
I don’t think that’s it, as there’s no shortage of the local ones. You see the local and non-local ones side-by-side with no shortage of either.
I’m pretty sure it’s just mega-store logistics, where they have a deal with the U.S. berry distributors and they can’t suspend it during local berry season.
Kevin 19:12 on 2025-07-10 Permalink
It really is the volume. Chains have to deal with mega-logistics, and often firms like Driscoll, which imports from Mexico and the US, are the only ones large enough to deal with.
I believe Metro allows a lot more leeway for individual stores to order from outside their internal market system, which is why they carry more local products and have the Cabane a ma maison in the spring.
dhomas 07:10 on 2025-07-11 Permalink
I think Kevin and Blork are right: it’s a logistics thing. I’ve noticed this not only with berries, but with Canadian products in general. The big box grocery stores must have some agreements to keep stock of big (American) producers’ products. I wanted to buy Primo ketchup (Canadian-made, Canadian-owned) instead of Heinz (sometimes-but-not-always Canadian-made, American-owned) or French’s (Canadian-made, American-owned), but I could never find it at Metro/Maxi/IGA. I found it at Adonis (owned by Metro), instead. I wanted to buy snacks for my kids’ movie night but could not find any Covered Bridge chips or Hawkins Cheezies (both 100% Canadian) at the big boxes. I finally found them at Giant Tiger (100% Canadian). (Covered Bridge had a fire that destroyed their factory last year and likely caused them to not have enough stock to supply the big stores for a while). Giant Tiger has surprised me with their food selection. I always thought they were like some kind of Rossy or Hart store. But their food selection is actually pretty decent for some types of products. I’ve been going there more often, even though it’s further away from me.
I’ve found that avoiding the big stores might be the way to go. Next, I’ll try small fruiteries to see if I can find more local fruit products.
Joey 07:49 on 2025-07-11 Permalink
These products are effectively commodities – yes, we all have our preferences but for the most part they are interchangeable (your recipe *usually* calls for berries, not Quebec berries, or ketchup, not Heinz Ketchup). So huge grocers treat them as such – it’s only since January that a significant portion of consumers is passionate about distinguishing among the commodity providers. I don’t think I know anyone who cared about not buying American products prior to Trump’s re-election. We’ve seen grocers try to ‘pivot’ to made-in-Canada options through signage, etc. (and sometimes they accidentally – or not – market American-made products as made in Canada), but to do so at large scale would take more time, cost a lot more and may not be feasible. You can only sell so many strawberries if you refuse to list those made in California.
@dhomas it’s lost on a lot of us that manufacturers pay distributors who pay retailers to stock certain products – it’s not that Metro prefers Heinz to Primo, it’s that Heinz effectively pays Metro for better store access. Fun!
And, yes, to Blork’s point, if you tell Driscoll that you won’t sell their products during berry season, they’ll walk away from you completely. Driscoll is not interested in cleaning up in the winter months only. We like to think of the supermarket as just a larger version of a local exchange between growers and buyers, but (as we saw with the bread-fixing scheme), it’s much much more complex than that and almost always in a way that ensures consistent access to mediocre goods. Unfortunately, it feels like 99 out of 100 decisions about the kind of economy we live in have to forego concerns about ethics, sustainability, etc.