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Forget buying local, Canadians should ask, 'How does it fit my values?'

Beef
[A cow on an Alberta beef farm/CBC]

Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall recently started a little Twitter feud with fast food chain A&W over commercials touting the company’s use of hormone and steroid-free beef.

“There is another ad from @AWCanada promoting non-Canadian beef. Guess we can support Cdn beef restaurants like @McDonalds” wrote the politician via Twitter. But A&W responded saying they do source a good deal of their beef from Saskatchewan.

A&W is the latest in a string of restaurant chains in Canada that are grappling with how to balance growing consumer demand for ethical and locally sourced products while Canadian ranchers push back, citing the importance of antibiotics and hormones to meet current demands for beef.

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But if ethics rule in the quick service restaurant sphere, it’s “Made in Canada” that seems to matter in the supermarket. According to a poll of 1,609 meat shoppers by Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency, Canadians were only willing to pay about 10 per cent more for antibiotic- or hormone-free meat while two thirds say they trust the Canadian meat supply chain.

While the definition of buying local can be rather loose at times, Canadians are making a concerted effort to source their food locally grown and produced. According to a poll by Global News 83 per cent try to buy local while half say they “usually” or “always” purchase food that is locally grown. 71 per cent say they’ll pay a premium for it.

But Fraser Johnson, a professor of operations management and Leenders Supply Chain Management Association Chair at Western University’s Ivey Business School, says that while some consumers are more principled than others the traction experienced by the “buy local” movement is predominantly in the food space.

“Most people have financial constraints and I think food is kind of an area where there’s opportunity both in terms of branding and merchandizing for locally produced products,” says Johnson. “But for a lot of the other stuff we buy as consumers – clothes or consumer packaged goods – locally-produced stuff does not have the same kind of value than the brand or quality does.”

There is, however, room for growth in the “Made in Canada” sphere says Johnson.

“Organizations today are becoming more sophisticated with their global sourcing strategies and they’re beginning to realize that some of the things they sourced outside the country should be reposition and sourced in other places – some of them even brought home,” he says.

He points to products that are high value, expensive to manufacture and typically require skilled labour and engineering support as opposed to labour content.

“Apple, Caterpillar, General Electric and Walmart have all set up programs where they’re starting to source things from North America and repatriating products that were manufactured or assembled in Asia,” says Johnson.

But it often comes down to what consumers want out of product – are they looking for value or quality?

“If we compete on low cost then we’re going to look for a low cost supply chain, if we compete on quality – defined as freshness or locally sourced – then we’ve got to be able to develop a supply chain to support that as well,” he says. “Those are two very different strategies.”

Johnson does point to a growing trend towards supply chain transparency. So maybe the question isn’t, is it local so much as what’s in it and where does it come from?

“Whether it’s food or a sweater, (consumers) want to make sure there aren’t GMO in their food, that there’s no pesticide use, that the company that made it didn’t use forced labour,” he says. “How can you prove it… it’s not a local versus global sourcing question, it’s how does a product that I’m buying align with what my values and priorities are.”