Getting Listed as a Canadian Food Manufacturer

The central purpose of BuyFromTheFarm.ca is to promote the domestic consumption of domestic agricultural production. While we recognize that many products, like pineapple and bananas, cannot be produced on Canadian Farms, where there is Canadian product available, we encourage consumers to favor products which contain domestic produce.

Our Canadian Food Manufacturers use large quantities of domestic farm product, even if they are not permitted by draconian labeling laws to state that fact. We wish to give Canadian Food Manufacturers a method, off of the label, to inform consumers precisely how much Canadian Farm product their packaged foods contain, and we hope too that consumers will provide enough market demand to encourage the Processors to work to improve their Canadian Content.

The following requirements apply to all Food Manufacturers who wish to list on BuyFromTheFarm.ca:

Products assigned UPC or EA13 barcodes

All products on the site must be searchable by their 12 or 13 digit barcode numbers, and the same numbers will be used no matter what store or geographic region the consumer is in.

Products contain Canadian Farm Product

It is not enough that an ingredient comes from a Canadian source. If flour is used from a Canadian mill, the mill must certify to the Food Manufacturer that a certain percentage of the grain is purchased from Canadian sources. Even if the flour is milled off-shore, if it contains a significant percentage of Canadian Wheat, then it contributes to Canadian content. While we encourage full Ingredient Country of Origin disclosure, it is not a requirement to list.

Annual Declaration

BuyFromTheFarm.ca requires that any information submitted to us, either for insertion or update, be accompanied by a Declaration of Accuracy from the Manufacturer, attesting that they have reviewed the information submitted, and that it is accurate to the best of their knowledge. Any questions about the accuracy of any claims made by the Manufacturer should be directed to the Manufacturer. This is an annual requirement. Failure to re-certify will result in a suspension of all listings until the required Declaration is received.

We are capable of listing Manufacturers who market a single product, as well as Manufacturers who have hundreds of products to offer. We will accept paper copy for limited products. Forms and an outline of our submission requirements are available below. We encourage submissions for more that 10 products to be in both paper and electronic form.

Word processor documents are not acceptable. Data must be in spreadsheet, comma delimited text (.csv), database (MS Access, MySQL files) or database dump (.def) form for database import.

Special bulk listing rates will apply to Manufacturers who submit information that complies with our database schema. We are willing to work with Processors to help them put the information in the proper format for submission.

For more information, please feel free to contact us directly.