Oranges from Morocco. Sweet potatoes from Japan. Blueberries from Peru. Red carrots from China.
The potatoes are from the Island, the apples are from the Okanagan and the strawberries were just picked from greenhouses of the Fraser Valley.
There’s not even a stick of celery from the United States here. Those come from Mexico.
At Urban Grocer, a mid-size neighbourhood grocery store on Fort Street near Oak Bay Avenue, it’s decidedly un-American in the produce aisle.
“We just listened to what our customers were saying, and they didn’t want to buy anything grown in the United States,” said Urban Grocer general manager Gary Innis.
The shift away from U.S. products comes amid a wave of patriotism fuelled by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff and annexation threats against Canada.
At Urban Grocer, it has meant replacing more than half the store’s roughly 400 produce varieties, no easy task for the independent outlet, which was converted from a post office four years ago.
“We are all patriots,” Innis said. “We believe that if we can do it, why not? So we did.”
As of Monday, the last of the American items had been donated to local food banks, making it a clean sweep at Urban Grocer. Produce manager Garth Green said it “wasn’t selling — people really didn’t want it.”
For Patti Hodgson, who had been hunting for celery not grown in California for a couple of weeks, finding a fresh bunch from Mexico made her day.
“I really appreciate what they are doing. It made me drive to a different area of the city to do my shopping,” said Hodgson.
She said boycotting American goods is, in a small way, fighting back against the U.S. trade aggression. “The other stores are trying to do it, too, so there’s kind of movement, but these guys have really taken it to another level and that’s really worth driving over to another part of the city.”
Urban Grocer is owned by Victoria-based Highbury Asset Management and Leigh Large, who is part of the family behind the Island-based Country Grocer chain.
Green said arranging new suppliers has meant “a lot of long nights on the phone, calling up people to see who’s got what.”
“I’ll go online and find things. We talk to our suppliers and say we know this is available … find it for us.”
He said the store has even turned away deliveries of U.S.-grown produce, most recently a skid of cauliflower.
Innis added: “It’s amazing to find out what you can buy when you do your research. When we saw people walking out of here with less than they usually buy, we knew we had to do this.”
While non-U.S. produce might be more expensive at the wholesale level, Urban Grocer has no plans to increase prices.
Innis said the store is “volume buying” to save money. “To be honest, [customers] tend to buy more when they like what they’re seeing.”
Some of those increased wholesale costs are also offset by more customers in the aisles.
Green said sales have increased nearly 20 per cent since the no-American-produce policy went into effect this past week. Other Canadian-made grocery items are also featured prominently and Innis said they are now working on converting to even more Canadian products.
All grocery chains are clearly marking where their produce is sourced, and featuring more international products than ever before.
That’s important to people like Jenette Young, who was shopping at the Root Cellar in Cook Street Village.
She’s taking extra time to pay attention to the source of her food, noting a clamshell of strawberries was grown in Mexico and packaged in California.
“It takes longer. In fact I was just at another store and I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t made in the U.S.,” said Young, who had carrots and prepared greens from B.C. and blueberries from South America in her cart.
When it comes to choosing between a lower price or spending a little more for local or international, she leans to spending a little more. “Frankly, the local tastes better,” Young said.
Root Cellar produce manager Tony Elson said shoppers are leaning to non-U.S.-produced goods, even if it means spending a bit more.
While the store still sells some American items, it’s always been rooted in local products, Elson said. “So we are looking forward to going into the spring when a lot of the local farmers have more to offer,” he said.
Chris Steel, operations manager for Old Farm Markets in Victoria, Duncan and Courtenay — a major buyer of local and B.C. produce — said smaller grocers offering more B.C. and local produce have seen an uptick in business over the past few weeks, which isn’t lost on the larger corporate stores.
“When they have the buying power and are able to buy large volumes of product from B.C. and other countries, then the price starts shooting up,” said Steel.
At the same time, American products are dropping in price, which creates a dilemma for some shoppers.
“Yes, it’s important people are keeping money locally and outside the U.S., but it’s also a challenging time for people economically. Some don’t get to choose things from outside of America.”
Steel said Old Farm Market prioritizes local and Canadian, but the stores are open to hearing what customers need to feed their families.
“We want to do everything we can to support Canada and I think unity is so important, now more than ever, but I certainly empathize with people who are going paycheque to paycheque trying to survive. It’s a very expensive city, Island and country to live in right now.”
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