Comparing Grocery Store House Brands, which are the most Canadian?

Various grocery store house brands have been discussed quite a bit online by shoppers looking to buy Canadian made products. In general, grocery store house brands tend to provide quite vague information on the actual packages often saying “prepared for” which gives no information about where the preparation took place.

Many frustrated shoppers have found in-store maple leaf flags next to items that are marked made in USA. We’ve delved through some available data to see how much Canadian content some of the most common house brands have.

Are President’s Choice products made in Canada?

President’s Choice, commonly known as PC is one of the house brands of the Canadian owned grocery network of Loblaws, Maxi, Real Atlantic Superstore, Real Canadian Superstore, Loblaws, Dominion, T&T Supermarket, Zehrs, Fortinos, SuperValu, Valu-mart, Freshmart, Your Independent Grocer, No Frills, and Wholesale Club.

President’s Choice combined with other PC brands such as PC Blue Menu have a total of 3845 items showing on the Real Canadian Superstore website, 1395 of which are identified as Prepared in Canada. That means 36% of President’s Choice items are identified as prepared in Canada or better.

Unfortunately, the vague term prepared in Canada is being used to capture the full range of Canadian food preparation and likely includes many items that could be marked as made in Canada (minimum of 51% Canadian production value) and potentially product of Canada (minimum of 98% Canadian production value).

Are No Name products made in Canada?

No Name is also a house brand of the Loblaws group and is sold at the same stores as President’s Choice. A total of 1131 items are listed on the Real Canadian Superstore website with 480 identified as Prepared in Canada. This gives a total of 42% of No Name items that are identified as prepared in Canada or better.

Are Compliments products made in Canada?

The Canadian owned grocery chain of Safeway, Sobey’s, Farm Boy, Longo’s, and IGA, uses the Voilà delivery service, who’s website lists 3,088 items of compliments products, of which 1,641 are marked as “Shop Canadian”, giving a total of 53% of Compliments items identified as Canadian. The Voilà website says items in this category are made in Canada from domestic and imported ingredients.

Are Western Family products made in Canada?

Western Family is the house brand of the Canadian owned grocery network of Save on Foods, PriceSmart, Nesters Market and Urban Fare, located in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Yukon.

Western family has a total of 1835 items showing on the Save on Foods website, 704 of which are identified as Made in Canada and a further 158 are identified as Product of Canada. That means 47% of Western Family items are identified as made in Canada or better.

Save-On-Foods stands out from other grocery retailers because it is listing products as either made in Canada or as Product of Canada. This is a significant improvement compared to the competition discussed above.

Are Irresisitibles, Selection and Life Smart products made in Canada?

Irresistibles, Selection and Life Smart are the house brands of Metro grocery store brand which includes Metro, Metro Plus, Super C, Food Basics, Adonis, Première Moisson, Jean Coutu and Brunet, located in Québec and Ontario. A total of 1601 items are listed on the metro website with 979 identified as Canadian products. This gives a total of 61% of Irresistibles, Selection and Life Smart items that are identified as Canadian products.

Metro does not provide a definition of Canadian products, accordingly it should be assumed to include all types of Canadian content including prepared in Canada, made in Canada and product of Canada.

Are Kirkland products made in Canada?

Kirkland Signature is the house brand of the American owned retail membership club Costco. Costco is not currently providing much information on the country of origin of Kirkland products through their website. We have a few made in Canada Kirkland products listed on ShopCanadianStuff.ca, if you know of others, please hit the add listing button in the top right corner of the home page or add a comment to this blog.

Are Great Value products made in Canada?

Great Value is the house brand of the American owned variety store of Walmart.

Great Value has a total of 1,486 items showing on the Walmart.ca website, 437 of which are identified as Made in Canada. That means 28% of Great Value items are identified as made in Canada or better.

The Best Made in Canada House brand?

Metro has the highest percentage of identified Canadian content at 61% for the Irresistibles, Selection and Life Smart brands, unfortunately Metro hasn’t provided a clear definition of the Canadian content criteria they are using.

Compliments takes the win for having the highest percentage at 53% of items being identified as made in Canada.

Save-On-Foods’ Western family takes home the award for the greatest clarity because they actually use the clearly defined and legally enforceable terms “made in Canada” and Product of Canada”. With 47% of Western Family products being either made in Canada or Product of Canada they are also doing well in terms of numbers.

The President’s Choice and No Name brands are still decent options (slightly better than Walmart’s Great Value) when looking for Canadian made or Canadian prepared options and they likely have quite a few more items that could be identified as made in Canada and product of Canada, but at this point that information simply isn’t being shared either because of a lack of organization or a deliberate attempt to provide vague information.