Sobeys, Loblaws, and Metro slapped Canadian maple leaf labels on American broccoli, ice cream cones, and almonds. Tod Maffin breaks down the CBC investigation and urges you to report mislabeled items to store managers and the CFIA, or skip the chains for farmers markets and local co-ops instead.
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I hadn't planned to do any videos this week because I'm sick, but this really pisses me off. The CBC reported today that many grocery stores in this country are telling shoppers that products on their shelves are Canadian when in fact they're American. And let's name names. The CBC says Sobeys, Loblaws, and Metro are running slick ads complete with maple leaves implying it's our moral duty to buy Canadian, like we're all in this together, except apparently we're not. At a Sobeys in Kitchener, the CBC says a sign said the broccoli is a product of Canada until you see the sticker. It's actually American. The CBC actually visited grocery stores operated by Sobeys, Loblaws, and Metro in downtown Toronto this month, and at each store they said they visited, they found produce labeled product of Canada or Mexico, but the product's packaging or sticker said it was a product of the USA. And it's not just the produce. At Sobeys alone, the CBC found ice cream cones, salad dressing, graham crackers, almonds imported from outside Canada but displayed with a red maple leaf symbol. The report says Sobeys' own website Says that symbol is meant to identify products that are made in Canada. By the way, almonds can't even grow in Canada. You don't need a PhD in agriculture to know that. You need a thermometer. At what point did these stop being typos? Start being something more troubling. First couple of weeks of all this, I can accept a few bugs in labeling. But it's been months now. Get your shit together. The grocery store chains the CBC contacted were like, "Oh sorry, mistakes happen. Inventory changes fast." You know what else can change fast? Trust and loyalty. Because we're not just talking about the occasional mislabeled lettuce. We're talking about a moment. Right now. When Canadians are trying to vote with our wallets to support our farmers, our workers, our supply chains, our locally owned businesses, and these massive grocery conglomerates worth billions can't be bothered to fix a problem that we have all noticed for months? Enough. If you see one of these fake Canadian products in the store, tell a manager and then file a complaint with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Here's the address. It only takes a couple of minutes and it actually does something. The agency says for all of the violations it found from reports, it contacted the grocer and they fixed it. Every one of them. And then, here's a radical idea: start buying from people. Farmers markets, co-ops, local delivery services. The people who don't need a sticker to prove that they're Canadian. The people who grow it here, make it here, live here. Maple Leaf isn't a marketing tool. It's a symbol of who we are. And if these companies want to use it, they better start acting like they deserve it.
