"Maple Wash" in Stores: Are Products with Maple Leaf Labels Really Canadian?

Image: A sign at the entrance of a Sobeys store reads “Sobeys Mumford is very Canadian” and features a Canadian flag. Grocery products and shopping carts are seen in the background.
A sign at the entrance of a Sobeys store in Halifax advertises the store’s Canadian roots. (CBC)

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Amid patriotic advertising and sincere efforts by Canadians to support their country in the face of repeated U.S. tariffs, the humble little maple leaf has been used heavily.

Perhaps nowhere is this symbol more visible than in grocery stores, where shelves are covered in red maple leaves to indicate that certain products are, in some way, Canadian.

But does the symbol mean what shoppers think it means? Why do some Canadian products have a maple leaf label or symbol, while others don’t?

A visit to a Sobeys and Superstore in Halifax revealed that the use of these markers was somewhat haphazard and confusing.

For example, at a Sobeys store, Kicking Horse coffee had a maple leaf label on the shelf, while Jumping Bean coffee, which is produced in Newfoundland, did not. Kicking Horse coffee was founded in British Columbia and was sold to Italian company Lavazza in 2017, but it still has a workforce in Canada.

Tim Hortons coffee beans, which are partly owned by a Brazilian investment company, were unlabeled at Sobeys, but at the Superstore there was a shelf marker that said the product was “Made in Canada.” The packaging also featured a large maple leaf with the text: “Roasted in Canada since 1964.”

Some products that would likely be recognized by locals as Nova Scotia products, such as Farmers milk, Oxford blueberries, and Cosman and Whidden honey, did not have a maple leaf label at a Sobeys store, although some did carry the Nova Scotia Loyal label. Nova Scotia Loyal is a provincial program that labels local products.

Just Us coffee, which is produced in Nova Scotia, had both the Nova Scotia Loyal label and the maple leaf label on the shelf.

What’s the difference between “Made in Canada” and “Made in Canada”?

The maple syrup section was equally confusing. Only one maple syrup product at a Sobeys store — the store’s own brand, Compliments — had a maple leaf label on the shelf, while several other Canadian brands did not.

Anna and Chris Hutchinson have been making maple syrup on their farm in South Berwick, Nova Scotia, for more than a decade, exporting their products locally as well as to the Middle East, the Netherlands and Costa Rica.

Anna Hutchinson takes her products to every Sobeys store in the province and personally stocks the shelves.

She’s noticed that some stores have maple leaf labels on the shelves containing her maple syrup, while others don’t. She says the use of these labels is at the discretion of the store manager, but if some of them aren’t there next to her product, it’s probably just human error.

“I think it’s a labor shortage,” she said. “They don’t have enough staff to handle these things.”

And of course, grocery stores have thousands of products. It’s a challenge to label them all correctly.

But Hutchinson said he really wants his products to have the maple leaf label because he sees it influencing customers’ purchases. He added that while his products do have the Nova Scotia Loyal label, it “isn’t prominent enough.”

As a consumer, Hutchinson questions how the store decides when to use the maple leaf label.

“These labels are everywhere,” he said. “It seems like 90 percent of the products have one of these labels. So it’s like, ‘Have you done your research? Do you know or did someone just put it there?’”

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The CBC reached out to Sobeys for an interview, but the company did not respond.

A Loblaw spokesperson declined to be interviewed and issued a statement that did not respond to CBC’s question about how the company decided to use the “Made in Canada” label.

The statement said Loblaw is showcasing products made in Canada and featuring them in stores, online and in advertising to make purchasing decisions easier. The company is also sourcing more Canadian-grown or produced foods and is looking to expand its product offerings.

The fine print
At Sobeys — a Canadian company — nearly all of its domestic Compliments brand products had a maple leaf label, even if the product itself was simply “imported for” Sobeys, like shredded coconut, or “made for” Sobeys, like orange juice.

Mike von Maso, a professor at the University of Guelph who studies food and labeling, says food manufacturers and retailers need to explain what their labels really mean.

“I think grocery stores need to be a little more careful,” he said. “They need to be very clear about what these labels mean and why they’re putting them on products. Are some companies overdoing it? Maybe.”

“As long as they’re clearly telling us what they’re saying, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing, but it could be a problem in the future,” he added.