Buy Canada
Overview of Product of Canada, Made in Canada, Ontario Made definitions.
Perhaps some other provincial programs will be added later.
Buy Canadian: Product Scanning app recommendations
There are a bunch of these apps, ranging from terrible to OK.
Here are a few we have found to be worth using, and perhaps confirming your own products scan properly with each app and provide useful results.
Tip: In some cases there are several apps with the exact same name, but are entirely different apps made by different developers. Cross check the app icon with the one shown here, and the app Developer name(s) before installing.
Or check the app website and click the download link from there.
ManufacturedIn.CA
Web site listing over 2,000 Canadian manufacturers. Search by name, category, even your postal code. Granolala.ca is listed.
Maple Scan app (iOS app available, Android in Beta)
Uses AI and web scraping to construct a report on whatever product FRONT label photo it is shown. This app does NOT care about the product UPC barcode. It just wants a clear image of the product front label, not the back label.
Does not seem to utilize a database. My guess is that the AI processing searches and scans for related information from websites across the internet and whatever other resources, mixed with its interpretation of the product front label.
Overall the report the app creates reads well enough and each of our Granolala products seems to be shown in a fairly good light.
The Maple Scan report includes typical AI summary errors with slightly incorrect statements.
Company info basics in the report (as tested with our own products) seem close enough but timelines and date history seems hallucinatory at least as much as they may be correct.
The app shows suggested alternative Canadian products below each report. I get why they do this, but it grates a bit to have competing products shown right below our own.
Suggestions for optimizing your own products and online info
For our Granolala products, our product front label includes our web site URL and the Ontario Made logo which includes a maple leaf. Our product name is presented in a style that is readable. Basic product description and our selling features are also present on the front label.
Consider how well your own product front label(s) would do when scanned using an app (such as Maple Scan) that entirely relies upon the front label. Filigree fonts and thinly drawn or cursive text can be harder to discern. Incomplete info might make it harder for such an app to fully recognize and understand what product the label is for, and to then understand what other online info it could use to create a relavent report.
The efforts we have invested into our own domain, website and Google presence would (I hope) make it easier for an AI system to correctly correlate our online presence with the product and the company the scanned label is attached to. Make sure your website really does include all your information, presented clearly and completely.
Vet your Google Business account (which is free to create and maintain). Ensure your Google Business Profile company info is complete. Ensure the product links and all other info are correct.
Create Google Updates, and post another every so often. This helps Google know you really are alive and care about your online presence.
BuyBeaver app (iOS and Android)
Yes, that is the app name :/
UPC barcode lookup based
Previously known as isitfromCanada.ca - URL now redirects to
BuyBeaver.ca
For our Granolala products we scanned each UPC code. The app did not have data for any of our barcodes, so we uploaded our own info using the app for each of our Granolala products.
Also submitted initial star ratings (self evaluated) for each scanned product code, using both app and web site. The web site seemed to be reluctant to 'see' the UPC barcode using the camera, sometimes it took a while to lock onto the barcode.
Tip: Check back later to confirm each of your own products now properly appears in search results when the barcode is scanned.
Developers;
Alexandre Hamila
Christopher Dip
Suggestions for optimizing your own products and online info
It is unknown which online UPC database the BuyBeaver app may be using as a starting point.
If your product UPC codes were issued by GS1 and the code assignments are valid and current, make sure your account with GS1 includes accurate and complete info. Include your company info, public contact info, and correct info about each product which has a GS1 UPC code assigned.
Think of GS1 as a marketing channel. Correct GS1 info makes it easier for some UPC scanning apps to access the correct info about your products.
Shop Canadian app
Includes some ads, not overbearing.
UPC barcode lookup based
News article summary: “… [Shop Canadian app checks against a] database of company-registered [UPC] product codes, and then shows the user whether the brand that made the product is registered in Canada, the U.S. or elsewhere.
There are still a few kinks to work out, especially as high scanning traffic leads to technical difficulties.
Plus, Boytinck and Suddaby are trying to decide how purist the app will be in determining whether something is Canadian or not.
"If it's imported by a Canadian company and packaged in Canada, sometimes we'll recognize it as Canadian," said Boytinck.
We scanned and submitted info and ratings for all three of our own Granolala products, as the app did not have any results to show for our UPC codes.
App now reflects the info we provided.
Unclear where the company info would come from. For our own codes, the company info is not shown in the app.
App does not seem to allow company info to be submitted or updated
Edmonton developers
William Boytinck
Matthew Suddaby
O SCANada
UPC barcode lookup based
App was created by a mother and son team in Calgary
Cathy Checora
oscanada.app@gmail.com
Uses BarCodeLookUp.com database
(or uses it to augment GS1 lookups ?)
Tip: You may want to use a proper computer to add your own UPC codes, rather than a smartphone
Barcodelookup.com/add-a-barcode
Circle back after a few days. Confirm all your product UPC codes now work in BarcodeLookup.com
AND click Add Store button to link each product to your online store URL
Canadian Made app
UPC barcode lookup based
Luke Taskiron
18 King Street East, Suite 1400
Toronto, Ontario, M5C 1C4
Canada
+1-647-360-8033
contact@madeinca.ca
We submitted our company info via web form
https://madeinca.ca/submissions/
Posted Update (Feb 2025)
We are currently working through a backlog of over 4,000+ business submissions. Thank you for taking the time to submit! Please note that it may take an extended period before your submission is published, as we do not have a specific timeline.
You are welcome to submit new listings, as we will eventually review and post each one in turn. However, if you have already submitted, please do not resubmit the same information. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Alternate UPC barcode resources
Despite GS1 (Canada) protestations, there is no central repository for all the UPC codes used in each country and which specific product each UPC code has been assigned to. Each product manufacturer is free to choose which barcodes (from the large block of UPC codes each manufacturer controls) are assigned to which of their products.
Some manufacturers do upload their product and UPC code pairing data to GS1, who include the info in the GS1 dataset for GS1 issued UPC codes. Other product manufacturers do not. They do tell the retail stores that sell their products.
In addition, not all valid UPC barcodes were/are issued by GS1. There were many (probably millions) valid UPC codes allocated long before GS1 came into being, and those valid-but-not-yet-used UPC codes are still being assigned to new products.
Separate from GS1, there are multiple other entiies that maintain online lookup databases for UPC codes. Some are private, some are open to receiving UPC product info from the public or from independent product manufacturers.
One of those is BarcodeLookup.com
Some UPC scanning apps use the database connected to BarcodeLookup.com