Baby eels have become one of the most valuable fish species by weight. One kilogram of the tiny, slimy elvers can fetch as much as $5,000 in world markets. They are highly sought after in Asia and elsewhere, and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have essentially cornered the world’s market in them.
It’s not just aluminum, maple syrup and hockey players that are Canadian-made and coveted around the world. From lentils to whisky (bourbon, really), watches to guitars, popcorn and potatoes, to, yes, hockey sticks, many great homegrown products are produced here. Canada even makes money for about 80 countries, refined from Canadian gold.
With Canada on the brink of a trade war with the United States over proposed tariffs, millions of Canadians are fighting back by buying locally. To help Canadians with their patriotic buying blitz, Postmedia journalists scoured the country for some of the coolest — and surprising — Canada-made products. Sorry (not sorry) to our American friends who may soon be paying more for them.
‘Big player’ in plant protein
When many Canadians think about agriculture in Saskatchewan, a crop that usually comes to mind is wheat. The gain was such a significant crop that it was the logo for the provincial government for decades.
Over many years, however, Canada’s breadbasket has become fertile ground for a crop in demand in many international markets. Lentils, which are a key ingredient for many vegetarian dishes and serve as an important source of plant-based proteins, have become a major crop for Saskatchewan farmers. According to the Government of Saskatchewan, in 2024, almost $2 billion worth of lentils was exported to 80 global markets. The top market, India, imported $530 million worth of Saskatchewan lentils last year.
“Our province exported 34 per cent of the world’s lentils,” said Saskatchewan Minister of Trade and Export Development Warren Kaeding. “That’s the position Saskatchewan plays in the lentil market — we are a big player.”
Read the full story by Michael Joel-Hansen, Saskatoon Star Phoenix
‘Canadian bourbon’?
Canada has a long history of making whisky that could be called bourbon. During Prohibition in the 1920s and for some time after, Canadian whisky made in the bourbon style was popular, even illicitly, in the U.S. But North America’s trade agreements only allow U.S. distillers to call their spirits bourbons.
Davin de Kergommeaux, an Ottawa-based expert on Canadian whisky who has written definitive books on the subject, estimates that there are more than a dozen Canadian distilleries that make what could be called bourbon. “They want to appeal to a certain taste,” even if they can’t put “bourbon” on their labels, de Kergommeaux says.
Perth, Ont.-based Top Shelf is among them. The award-winning whisky that Top Shelf distills is branded as Rideau Whisky rather than bourbon, even though it is technically bourbon.To be called a bourbon on its label, a whisky must be made from a mash of at least 51 per cent corn then stored in oak barrels.In the fall of 2018, John Criswick knew that if he wanted the real thing, he would have to go to Kentucky.
Peter Hum has the story in the Ottawa Citizen.
Year-round strawberries
The Canada Food Guide recommends that half the foods Canadians eat in a day should come in the form of fruits and vegetables. It does not, however, make any mention of where these foods should come from. But the threat of punishing trade tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump has many Canadians wondering if the produce they buy from the United States might be better sourced closer to home.
The good news is that almost anything that can be grown can — thanks to greenhouse technology and other wonders of modern science — be cultivated in Canada. A Royal Bank report, “The Greenhouse Boom: How indoor farming can transform food production and exports,” notes that fruit and vegetable production in greenhouses has risen for 11 consecutive years, up 9.2 per cent in 2023 to $2.5 billion, double what it was a decade ago.
Read more on year-round fruits and vegetables in the National Post
Rise of artisan flour
Arva Flour Mill, established in 1819 just north of London, Ont., has seen daily orders via its website triple in recent weeks. While mill co-owner Mark Rinker credits the buy-Canadian trend for the rapid sales jump, orders from U.S. customers also are up.
“My thought was that, with that threat of tariffs … business would dry up,” he said. “It’s almost like there’s this sympathetic response, that U.S. customers are upset at their government for levelling tariffs on friendly nations.”
The mill sells artisan flours, beer bread mixes, pancake mixes and gluten-free products under its Arva Flour Mills brand. In 2022, it acquired the Red River whole-grain hot cereal brand from Smuckers Foods of Canada Corp.
Read more about the 206-year-old Canadian business in The London Free Press.
Business pops for Uncle Bob’s
Orders are flooding in for Uncle Bob’s popcorn brand, grown and produced by the Ontario Popping Corn Company. The company is owned and operated by the Townsend family of Walsingham in Southern Ontario.
“The company was founded in 1985 by my grandfather and a couple of business partners,” explained Tanner Townsend, who oversees marketing and sales. “That’s where we got Uncle Bob’s from, because my grandfather was Robert. He was affectionately known in the community as Uncle Bob.”
As the largest grower of popcorn in the country, they are also the only Canadian grower of specialty, white hull-less popcorn that doesn’t get stuck in your teeth. As well, a unique offering is their hand-harvested Pop-A-Cob that comes with a paper bag into which you place the entire corn cob and put it in the microwave to pop..
Brian Thompson has the story in The Brantford Expositor.
A hotbed of guitar-making
Shania Twain may be from Timmins, Ont., but the custom acoustic guitar she plays in concert comes from North Vancouver-based Prestige Guitars. While big music stars and collectors love the custom instruments coming from B.C.’s luthiers, few people are familiar with the guitar-making hotbed beyond diehard music fans.
The Luthiers of B.C. website notes a possible reason for that. “Although several B.C. luthiers are world-renowned, they tend to fly under the radar. Luthiers tend not to be great self-promoters,” the website reads. “They are consumed with their craft far more than the drudgery of marketing and, for many, marketing is not necessary, since word of mouth has resulted in waiting lists longer than they can handle.”
The reason guitar-makers love Canada’s West Coast all comes down to its trees. Specifically, tonewood varieties used to make musical instruments, typically chosen for a combination of its acoustic and esthetic qualities. Softwoods from trees such as the Sitka spruce, Western red cedar and Douglas fir, and hardwoods such as maple, ash and alder, are all preferred.
Stuart Derdeyn has the full story in the Vancouver Sun
Timeless Canadian timepieces
Mark Griffiths leans over his workbench in the basement workshop of his northwest Calgary home, peering through a magnifying eyepiece as he meticulously examines the components of a watch. This is where he spends hours tinkering in his pristine workspace, restoring antique watch movements and assembling his Canadian-made timepieces.
Griffiths, an industrial designer, owns Barrington Griffiths Watch Company, a Calgary-based custom watch design and manufacturing company. Recently, heightened consumer interest in locally made products — sparked by ongoing U.S. tariff disputes — has resulted in increased inquiries about his watches, he said.
With stainless-steel cases manufactured in a machine shop near Edmonton and leather straps crafted at a Hutterite colony near Nanton, Griffiths said he’s worked hard to keep production local. Griffiths said he is unaware of other watchmakers in Calgary producing made-in-Canada products, and believes he is one of few in Canada doing so.
His watches generally retail for about $500 to $600, a reasonable price compared to some designer watches.
Read the full story by Noah Brennan in the Calgary Herald
A home team stick
W. Graeme Roustan is taking his best shot at countering the threat of potential Trump tariffs, but the owner of the country’s last major hockey stick manufacturing facility says it needs to be a team effort.
Roustan Hockey Ltd. has been turning out about 400,000 hockey sticks a year from its Brantford, Ontario plant, birthplace of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. Half of the sticks are sold to Canadian Tire under the store’s Sherwood brand.
The company also makes hockey sticks for its own brands, Christian and Northland, for which Gretzky is Roustan’s marketing partner. They are teammates with the goal of making the sport more affordable for families.
The Northland old-school wood sticks, which are stamped with Gretzky’s name and “Made in Brantford, Ontario,” sell for a fraction of the cost of a composite stick. The company also makes composite, injected blade and street hockey sticks.
But Roustan said the threat of 25 per cent duties is hurting his company.
Read more by Michelle Ruby in the Brantford Expositor
Canada making change
The Royal Canadian Mint’s International Minting division is a world powerhouse in money-making, producing currency for around 80 different countries.
Founded in 1908, the crown corporation began making money for other countries for the first time in 1918, when it started making coins for Jamaica. In 1976, the Mint’s Winnipeg location opened, dedicated to international coin production. Coins produced from the Winnipeg location can be found in a long list of countries, from Argentina to Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Ethiopia, Italy, the Philippines, and dozens more.
Since 1911, the Mint has operated one of the most advanced and versatile refineries in the world. The Mint’s refining capacity is almost entirely dedicated to processing gold from Canadian mines.
Matteo Bertinato has the full story at National Post
Squirmy big business of baby eels
During his lifetime, Philip Holland was known as a dedicated Crown prosecutor who put the bad guys behind bars. But his legacy could very well be the lucrative baby eel industry he started in Canada under the most modest of circumstances, keeping the tiny, squirmy critters he had plucked from cold New Brunswick rivers alive in plastic tubs in his basement before shipping them to Asia.
More than two decades after his death in 2003, and 36 years since he was granted an experimental licence to capture glass eels, the elver industry in Atlantic Canada has become deliriously successful, worth millions.
It’s been bittersweet for his family, who have seen the business success lead to a free-for-all on the rivers in the springtime, with licence holders battling First Nations members and poachers for the best spots.
Fearing the worst, the federal fisheries minister shut down the industry in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia three times in the last five years, with new rules expected to be in force this spring.
It’s a far cry from a few plastic tubs in Holland’s basement.
Read the full story in National Post
A boot built for Canadian weather
Kamik is a 125-plus year-old boot company based in Quebec that makes their footwear at their Montreal factory.
Sold in over 10,000 outlets throughout more than 40 countries worldwide, Kamik has become known for its reliable footwear designs that span children’s rain boots to adult, heavy-duty winter options.
Founded in 1898, a specialization in weather-appropriate footwear is a key element that remains unchanged throughout the company’s history, says company CEO Gillian Meek.
“The world was a different place 125 years ago,” Meek says. “Think about it: there were hardly any cars, and to get around the city, people walked or took the newly electrified streetcars. Reliable boots were needed to endure our harsh Canadian winters.”
Read the full story by Aleesha Harris, Vancouver Sun
Clean makeup, Indigenous brand
Cheekbone Beauty is an Indigenous-founded beauty brand from entrepreneur Jenn Harper. The makeup brand is known for its clean beauty products and vegan cosmetics.
The Ontario-based entrepreneur said she wanted to start the first Indigenous-owned cosmetics company. “When I look back now, it’s bananas that someone with no experience in this industry would even think that they have … the wherewithal to even begin,” Harper recalls. “But I was really working off passion and this whole idea of why not?”
Started in 2016, Cheekbone Beauty is now a fast-growing cosmetics company, complete with its own formula chemist at its St. Catharines, Ont., facility, which Harper calls the brand’s “Indigenous Innovation Lab.”
Read the full story by Aleesha Harris, Vancouver Sun
B.C. fish for B.C. consumers. It’s a rarity
Sonia Strobel began seafood company Skipper Otto to make it easier to buy B.C. fish in B.C. The irony of that isn’t lost on Strobel. Data shows Canada exports about 90 per cent of the seafood we harvest, and imports 80 per cent of the seafood we eat. In 2022, B.C. harvested 115,243 tonnes of wild fish and seafood worth about $441 million. Most of that was exported, with the U.S. at the top of the list.
Skipper Otto signs up members to buy local seafood sourced from First Nations harvesters and what is left of B.C.’s independent fishing fleet. “If the threat of a trade war causes people to realize what’s happening and what they value, then that’s the silver lining,” she said.
Read more by Glenda Luymes, Vancouver Sun
No small potatoes
Wayne Rempel operates Kroeker Farms, an organic potato farming business based in Winkler, Man., near the U.S. border. Nearly 65 per cent of Kroeker Farms’ annual potato crop finds its way into American kitchens, a haul of spuds that requires about 6,000 tractor-trailer trips to transport, which, by any measure, is no small potatoes, but still a fraction of the $3.6-billion worth of potatoes and potato products, such as chips and frozen fries, that Canada exported in 2023/24, almost 93 per cent of which went to the U.S.
Were Rempel and the rest of Canada’s potato farmers to cease sending their products south in the event of a tit-for-tat, 25 per cent tariff trade war initiated by Trump, the U.S. would be caught in the grips of a potato famine of sorts, given the average American consumes 24 kilograms of the food item per year.
Read the full story by Joe O’Connor in the Financial Post