Sourcing local ingredients or looking outside the U.S. could avoid any retaliatory Canadian tariffs on U.S. imports.
With the threat of U.S. tariffs still hanging over Canada, B.C.-based Earth’s Own Food Company, which produces plant-based milk substitutes, made the decision to source more of the ingredients it uses from Canada.
That includes sourcing all soybeans from Canada, as it already does with oats.
The company, which has a processing plant in Delta and others in Ontario and Quebec, is also looking to switch its almond supply source from the U.S. to Europe. Almonds are not grown in Canada because of its chilly weather.
“It’s always been a philosophy of ours to source Canadian ingredients. We are proudly Canadian. We operate in Canada and wherever we can we try to have as local a footprint as possible,” says Brittany Hull, the company’s vice-president of marketing.
Going farther afield for ingredients, like Europe, may come with a higher cost, but Hull said sometimes paying a premium is the right thing to do.
Sourcing local ingredients or looking outside the U.S. could also avoid any retaliatory Canadian tariffs on U.S. imports.
The U.S. is B.C.’s biggest source of imports, at $26 billion in 2023, making up 34 per cent of B.C.’s imports, according to figures from B.C. Statistics.
Earth’s Own, which employs 150 people, will still have to rely on the U.S. for some items, including packaging, because there are no Canadian producers that can supply enough cartons, said Hull.
And Earth’s Own will also continue to get its vegan cream cheese, butter and sour cream from the U.S. because they don’t have the machinery here to produce the products, she said.
Many food products companies, especially those that export to the U.S., are expected to take a hit if U.S. tariffs are implemented.
A recent survey by B.C. Food and Beverage, whose members include wineries, natural-food processors, bakeries, juicers and seafood processors, found 96 per cent of members expected U.S. tariffs would hurt them. Two-thirds said the impact would be significant.
James Donaldson, the industry group’s CEO, noted that companies, many of them small, would not only be hit by the U.S. tariffs on exports but also possibly by any retaliatory tariffs imposed by Canada.
Should U.S. tariffs become a reality, there are few short-term options for their members, and some not very appealing, said Donaldson.
Those include cutting production and laying off staff people, trying to sell more into the Canadian market and finding a U.S. so-called “co-packer” that will package and manufacture products for clients across the border.
Other options would take much longer, including finding alternative markets and sourcing supplies outside the U.S., said Donaldson, who is a member of the B.C. government’s new trade and economic security task force.
“In the short term, there is not a lot you can do,” said Donaldson. “If there is a silver lining to come from this, it’s that it is a bit of wake-up call that we need to have more self-reliant food systems because we are too reliant on imports, not just in B.C. but right across the country.”
For one B.C.-food company, it seems like the right time to do just that.
Sonia Strobel, the CEO of Skipper Otto, is adamant that the threat of steep U.S. tariffs has created a moment where it is possible to permanently change the province’s food supply system so it is less focused on export and more aligned with feeding people here.
The Vancouver-based company, which employs 10 full-time and a dozen part-time staff, has had an uptick in interest from people intent on sourcing local seafood in response to the proposed tariffs, a change she’d like to see repeated across Canada and one that she hopes is permanent.
The company works with family-run operators to supply directly to consumers, packaging the seafood in Metro Vancouver and shipping it as far away Montreal.
“I think there’s a sense of urgency,” said Strobel. “If we really want to have resilient local food systems, we have to design a different system that’s got processing capacity and distribution capacity within Canada.”