Canadians are buying less products made in the U.S. in an effort to brace for the impact of President Trump’s sweeping tariffs, which are set to cause prices to skyrocket across a range of products.
“American products we are selling as a percentage of our total sales are rapidly dropping,” said Michael Medline, president and CEO of Empire Company Limited, which is a parent corporation for Canadian food retailers.
“We have heard loud and clear from our customers that they want Canadian products,” he told stakeholders on the company’s third quarter earnings call.
Medline said the company’s 12 percent average in U.S. products is decreasing as a result of consumer buying habits.
“Over the years, we as a company have developed a much larger and diversified source of supply to proactively manage threats, such as natural disasters or product shortages in geographic regions,” he said.
“Now we have developed good alternatives in nearly every category.”
However, he highlighted produce as the main concern for the Canadian company as U.S. tariffs on exports and imports begin to take effect.
“Our most challenging category to mitigate the threat of retaliatory tariffs is produce where in Canada, in the winter, we do not always have viable alternatives,” Medline said.
“We could see an impact here either through increased cost or reduced assortment if the product is no longer competitive on our shelves over time.”
He said their focus is ensuring prices do not impact customers.
“Our supplier partners with US based production are directly impacted by retaliatory tariffs. This puts pressure on them. And as a result, they may be looking to pass these increased costs on. Some have begun to test our position on this,” Medline said.
“We’re navigating a period of uncertainty and we are focused on ensuring the reactionary or unnecessary costs are not passed on to customers. We’re managing the short to midterm through fair but often tough discussions with our suppliers and we’ve been pleased to see many of our suppliers proactively coming to the table with solutions.”
