I tried to get on with this “Buy Canadian” protest. But ketchup, a basic north American staples far as I’m concerned, has no major Canadian only manufacturers. The only stuff you can find is boutique stuff that’s like 10 bucks for 500ml. and you have to have it shipped to you.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a pure Canadian? Then you gotta get it into the press whether it wants to go or not, and then the little bugger jams the works with a peavey and it takes forever to repair the damage!
Heinz used to make ketchup in Leamington ON, with locally grown tomatoes. They closed it down in 2014, choosing to bring ketchup in from other facilities in the US.
Heinz had also started making mustard, the main product of French’s. French’s decided to take advantage of the opportunity to strike back and took over the old Heinz facility in Leamington and began making ketchup out of the same tomatoes that Heinz had been using in Canada.
Since then, French’s has been bought out by McCormick, and moved production to London, ON. The Leamington Facility is now Highbury Canco, and it does private label manufacturing. Heinz has restarted ketchup production in Montreal, using tomato paste from the Highbury Canco plant, their own old facility.
Meanwhile Primo Foods makes a ketchup, made in Canada. Primo is owned by Sun-Brite, a Canadian company, so that’s the trifecta. There’s also that old plant in Leamington, Highbury-Canco that does private label/co-pack. Canada has lots of food manufacturing, at places like Delmar Foods, Luda, Hall’s Kitchen, Giraffe Foods. This means when you buy a house brand from a Canadian retailer like Western Family or Compliments, there is a decent chance it’s made in Canada by one of these private label manufacturers.
Aylmer is a Canadian company that used to make really good ketchup. I’d buy it whenever I found it, but nobody stocked it regularly. Looks like they no longer make it, but this might be a great time for them to start up again.
Sobeys’ Compliment and Metro’s Selection and very much Canadian alternatives and they cost the same as heinz normally. According to buy beaver there’s also Western Family.
You can make some from local tomatoes, and freeze or can any extra for later. It’s a pretty simple recipe, you just cook down some tomatoes and add spices and vinegar.
This is really only a solution if you have freezer space or storage space and free time. Also homemade ketchup often sucks. Most people are not capable of making a half decent ketchup.
This I came here to say this, and you can adjust things like the vinegars you use (which can be picked out or made by yourself). The different spice blends you use (they can be made or even better grown by yourself). The the different tomatoes you use (which can be picked out or grown by yourself).
Tomatoes are the most popular field vegetable grown in Canada making up 23.9% of production. That equates to around 543,000 tonnes produced per year. 98% of all tomatoes are grown in Ontario and most tomatoes are used in “processing”. However, Canada is one of the top importers of vegetables in the world with tomatoes being 5th place in most imported vegetable. An additional 177,000 tonnes are imported (mostly from Mexico and USA) to supply demand.
So while we produce a lot, it still isn’t enough to cover domestic consumption. I’m sure we could make domestic ketchup, but it would be taking away from tomatoes already being used somewhere else in Canada.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !canada@lemmy.ca
Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a pure Canadian? Then you gotta get it into the press whether it wants to go or not, and then the little bugger jams the works with a peavey and it takes forever to repair the damage!
Heinz used to make ketchup in Leamington ON, with locally grown tomatoes. They closed it down in 2014, choosing to bring ketchup in from other facilities in the US.
Heinz had also started making mustard, the main product of French’s. French’s decided to take advantage of the opportunity to strike back and took over the old Heinz facility in Leamington and began making ketchup out of the same tomatoes that Heinz had been using in Canada.
Since then, French’s has been bought out by McCormick, and moved production to London, ON. The Leamington Facility is now Highbury Canco, and it does private label manufacturing. Heinz has restarted ketchup production in Montreal, using tomato paste from the Highbury Canco plant, their own old facility.
Meanwhile Primo Foods makes a ketchup, made in Canada. Primo is owned by Sun-Brite, a Canadian company, so that’s the trifecta. There’s also that old plant in Leamington, Highbury-Canco that does private label/co-pack. Canada has lots of food manufacturing, at places like Delmar Foods, Luda, Hall’s Kitchen, Giraffe Foods. This means when you buy a house brand from a Canadian retailer like Western Family or Compliments, there is a decent chance it’s made in Canada by one of these private label manufacturers.
Can’t you just distill it from ketchup potato chips?
Aylmer is a Canadian company that used to make really good ketchup. I’d buy it whenever I found it, but nobody stocked it regularly. Looks like they no longer make it, but this might be a great time for them to start up again.
I thought French’s leases part of the former Heinz plant in Leamington, ON and uses tomatoes from the local greenhouses.
CBC made a mini-documentary about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af7Jctuqhcg
still an American company.
Primo https://www.primofoods.com/primo/index.php
Owned by Sun-Brite, which is independent and Canadian. Fun fact, they make Heinz Ketchup for Heinz too.
Here are the stores that carry it https://www.primofoods.ca/primo/ketchup.php
Tell your store you want them to carry it…they likely already carry other Unico or primo products (both are Sun-Brite)
A) Thanks for trying, every bit helps! And hey, even if you can’t buy Canadian, not buying American is pretty helpful!
B) there’s a community set up for all these questions and recommendations etc:
https://lemmy.ca/c/buycanadian
Sobeys’ Compliment and Metro’s Selection and very much Canadian alternatives and they cost the same as heinz normally. According to buy beaver there’s also Western Family.
You can make some from local tomatoes, and freeze or can any extra for later. It’s a pretty simple recipe, you just cook down some tomatoes and add spices and vinegar.
This is really only a solution if you have freezer space or storage space and free time. Also homemade ketchup often sucks. Most people are not capable of making a half decent ketchup.
This I came here to say this, and you can adjust things like the vinegars you use (which can be picked out or made by yourself). The different spice blends you use (they can be made or even better grown by yourself). The the different tomatoes you use (which can be picked out or grown by yourself).
Covered Bridge makes good chips.
I just saw Munchies again, but unfortunately they’re owned by Pepsi. Which sucks because they’re really good.
deleted by creator
We probably don’t produce enough tomatoes locally to support that.
Ever heard of Leamington, ON or Delta BC? Those cities make lots of tomatoes.
I know, for the grocery. You’d probably need twice as many for a full scale ketchup production. I didn’t say we don’t have any.
Hienz used to have a factory in lemington but moved it, to Mexico i think
I think French and Heinz use Canadian tomatoes. So does the bottle of Compliments in my fridge. I guess we grow more tomatoes than we realize :)
I found this government report on the Canadian Field Vegetable Industry
Tomatoes are the most popular field vegetable grown in Canada making up 23.9% of production. That equates to around 543,000 tonnes produced per year. 98% of all tomatoes are grown in Ontario and most tomatoes are used in “processing”. However, Canada is one of the top importers of vegetables in the world with tomatoes being 5th place in most imported vegetable. An additional 177,000 tonnes are imported (mostly from Mexico and USA) to supply demand.
So while we produce a lot, it still isn’t enough to cover domestic consumption. I’m sure we could make domestic ketchup, but it would be taking away from tomatoes already being used somewhere else in Canada.
We never needed to grow it all here because of our trade partnership with the States.
Since that’s never coming back, we should be able to scale our hothouse (indoor production) tomatoes for the extra demand.
Since tomatoes can be made into non perishable goods, there’s far less risk to farmers, even if you overproduce.