Grocery retailers responding to Buy Canada sentiment with more ways to identify local products [Video]

When your biggest competitor has had its brand immortalized by Andy Warhol, it can be tough to convince customers to give your soup cans a second look.

But the co-founder and chief executive of BCI Foods Inc. – a soup manufacturer based in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que. – is hoping that trade tensions between Canada and the United States will be an opportunity to better compete against Campbell’s, the number-one player in the market. Both his Aylmer and Primo soup brands are made in Canada and packaged in steel cans also made here.

“We really want to take advantage of this moment in marketing. Canadians are already embracing a ‘Buy Canada’ initiative,” CEO Daniel Cousineau said in an interview. “We just need to make it more obvious to them.”

As the date approached for U.S. President Donald Trump’sthreatened 25-per-cent tariffs on all Canadian imports to take effect, retailers over the past week have seen customers making an effort to buy Canadian products. Social-media posts have been circulating with …