Canada is having an unusually patriotic moment right now, and the grocery store is one space where our ire towards the mercurial actions of the United States is being enacted every day. Canadian’s are looking for more Made in Manitoba and Canadian products, and many are willing to pay a premium for these products. For food and beverage manufacturers, this is a unique moment.
Manitoba is a relatively small market, and for decades, many manufacturers did the logical thing. They looked south to the tens of millions of consumers just 200 km south of the border. Unlike going West and East, access to this lucrative market just made more sense.
At his speech in Davos, Prime Minister Carney rallied the world with a simple message: nostalgia is not a strategy, and the new world order won’t just come back when Trump is gone. Something has fundamentally changed in the posture of America, and hoping for calmer minds to prevail is not a sound business strategy.
Canada has what the world wants and needs. Highly educated, technologically advanced, and with a massive surplus of agricultural products, we are one of the few countries uniquely positioned to feed the world. But to do this, we need to challenge ourselves to be more ambitious, to take some big swings, and to take advantage of the dozens of free trade deals we have with countries around the world. Historically this has meant we ship many raw commodities to be processed elsewhere. We have a unique opportunity to focus on value added, shelf stable products that capture more of the value locally.
This is why I will be attending FoodEx in Japan, one of the world’s premier food and beverage shows taking place on March 10-13th in Tokyo. Manitoba already exports almost 1 billion dollars of food and beverage products to Japan and we know there is room to grow. Pork, wheat and canola seeds dominate these exports, but I am interested in what CPG products Manitoba can export, and what buyers are looking for.
This is why I will be walking the show and producing a series of blogs that will focus on identifying trends, opportunities, and transferring knowledge to our members in the hopes that it will inspire you to ask a simple question: what do I have that the world wants or needs? How can my product capture the unique story of our Prairie bounty, our clean air and water, and the high safety and quality standards of our products? How can we better tell the story of our sustainable farming practices, high quality ingredients, and position ourselves not as a discount brand, but as premium product?
Manitoba already has a strong foundation and trust with Japanese buyers. While building on this foundation will take time, an opportunity exists to create products for a market that is willing to pay a premium for high quality, functional, protein forward specialty products that can leverage our reputation as safe, reliable, and trusted partner. Over the next week, I will do my best to translate the opportunities I see at FoodEx Japan and to help build bridges for future trade missions and work.
