Is Coors Light Canadian? Why finding a homegrown product can be tough
Deciding exactly what counts as a Canadian product isn't always straightforward
As tariff news changes by the day, Canadians continue to look for homegrown alternatives to American products.
But what constitutes a Canadian product is not necessarily straightforward.
"The onus is on us as consumers to ask the questions, to do the research that's important to us and decide which parameters are important to us," said Michael von Massow, a food economics professor at the University of Guelph.
Von Massow said possible factors to consider include where the product is produced, where the ingredients come from, where it's packaged and the ownership of the company.
Consider beer.
Coors Light is an American brand. Molson Canadian is a Canadian one. But a can of either on the shelf in New Brunswick is produced in the same place: the MolsonCoors brewery in Moncton.
MolsonCoors is headquartered in Chicago, but, as a publicly traded company, it has shareholders around the world.
When N.B. Liquor began taking Kentucky bourbon and California wines off the shelf in their corporate stores, brands like Coors and Budweiser remained.
According to N.B. Liquor spokesperson Florence Gouton, the retailer considers "the country of production as our primary data point to identify what is considered an American product."
"Our goal is to ensure that we do not negatively impact companies that manufacture in Canada, with Canadian ingredients and Canadian employees," she said in an email.
MolsonCoors, Gouton said, "is an excellent example."
"This Canadian business division has five breweries in Canada, which produce all the domestic products sold here in New Brunswick; it also employs thousands of Canadian workers in its five breweries, its sales force, its logistics, etc."
The highest certification a food product can receive from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is "Product of Canada," where all, or nearly all, of the ingredients in a product are from Canada, and it is produced with Canadian labour.
Pretty much all beer on the shelf would fit into that category. Where it gets tricky is if the ownership of a given company matters.
"Are we worried about where the brand is from, where the ownership of the company is from, or are we worried about where it's made?" von Massow said.
Ultimately, he said, those looking for Canadian-owned options should turn to craft beer.
Lloyd Chambers, the president of the New Brunswick Craft Alcohol Producers Association, said consumers can feel comfortable knowing their dollars are staying in their communities.
"You're supporting jobs here," he said.
"Most of the craft producers invest most of the money back into hiring more people, expanding, buying equipment. So the money that you spend on craft alcohol, whether it's wine, spirits or beer or cider, most of it will stay in the province."
However, Chambers says he wouldn't want to see a boycott of macrobreweries. Just because they aren't necessarily Canadian-owned doesn't mean they don't contribute to the local economy.
One of the few macrobrewers that remain Canadian-owned is Saint John-based Moosehead. CEO Andrew Oland told Information Morning Saint John the company is looking to lean into that distinction with its recent marketing.
"Consumers are saying 'We want Canadian products, we want true Canadian products," he said.
"So we are leaning into that very hard … we've adjusted out media campaigns to remind everyone that we are 100 per cent Canadian since 1867."
Oland admitted as well that basically all beer on the shelf in New Brunswick stores can be considered Canadian.
He also pointed out that many of the hops that many brewers rely on come from the U.S.
The integrated nature of the North American and, to an extent, global economy is part of why it's so difficult to determine what being a Canadian product means.
Even the production of beer cans involves moving product back and forth across the border multiple times.
Von Massow said there's a reason trade has become so integrated.
"We're talking now about the costs to both the American and the Canadian economies of tariffs and that's because there are values in taking advantage of different competencies and different things that we're good at to create value for both economies," he said.
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