Eat Canadian

How to Identify Food Products as Canadian

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) research shows that using the Canada Brand stylized maple leaf in conjunction with a clarifying Canadian content or process statement, and prominently positioned on the front of your food product labels, can increase sales of those products.

When you become a Canada Brand member, you gain access to a variety of promotional tools, including the Canada brand maple leaf, to help identify or brand your products as Canadian. In addition, AAFC staff will work with you to help design your product labels to take full advantage of the maple leaf and Canadian content/process statement.

Below are suggested statements and the criteria for being able to use each statement. Statements must be used in close proximity to the Canada Brand maple leaf:

  • "Product of Canada" – can be used all or virtually all of the major ingredients, processing and labour used to make the food product are Canadian.
  • "Made with 100 % Canadian (naming the ingredient)" – can be used when the named ingredient in the claim that is used in the food product is entirely Canadian (i.e. 100 % Canadian).
  • "Made in Canada from domestic and imported ingredients" – can be used when the last substantial transformation of the food product has occurred in Canada and the product contains a mix of domestic and imported ingredients. Note: packaging or re-packaging of a product is not considered to be a substantial transformation.
  • "Made in Canada from imported ingredients" – can be used when the last substantial transformation of the food product has occurred in Canada and the product contains only imported ingredients. Note: packaging or re-packaging of the product is not considered a substantial transformation.
  • "Processed in Canada", "Prepared in Canada", "Roasted in Canada", "Refined in Canada", "Baked in Canada" or similar statements – can be used when the named process for that product occurred in Canada. The food product may contain domestic ingredients, imported ingredients or a blend of domestic and imported ingredients.
  • "Grown in Canada" – can be used when the food product was grown in Canada, even if the seeds used were imported from another country.

Detailed guidance on the use of domestic content claims such as these can be found on CFIA's website.