‘Dramatically going to impact our business’: Ontario company concerned about expanding to U.S. due to tariff threat

Canada sends $41 billion in food products to the U.S. annually. CTV News Toronto’s Sean Leathong investigates how food producers will have to adjust.

A Mississauga-based company is concerned about expanding its business to the United States due to the looming tariff threat on Canadian goods.

Julie Bednarski, Healthy Crunch Founder and CEO, launched the company 10 years ago to make healthy, enjoyable snack food for the masses. Healthy Crunch’s approach to snack foods have grown their sales to $10 million last year.

“So, this year, we’re going to be launching into Whole Foods in the U.S., Target, Walmart, a lot of the other regional retailers like Kroger, too,” Bednarski told CTV News Toronto.

Though Bednarski was optimistic about expanding to the U.S.—as she was expecting sales to more than double this year—the threat of the 25 per cent tariffs has her in limbo.

“It’s dramatically going to impact our business in a negative way if these tariffs do come into play,” she says.

Sylvain Charlebois, Dalhousie University professor and expert in food distribution, says the margins in the industry are very low. This 25 per cent tax on food heading down to the U.S. would all but block ready-made foods from selling, he says.

“You’re basically selling to grocers and so they need to if they if they want to carry your product, they need to make darn sure that that product actually is priced competitively,” he says.

Charlebois says that of the 41 billion in food products sold to the U.S. each year, the majority comes right from the farm.

“If you’re a farmgate player like wheat or beef or pork, then you have more space, you have more options, and you can still remain committed to the U.S. market,” he says.

He says with well-established shipping, Canadian farmers can move quickly to sell products overseas—so some farmers can afford to take a hit on margin in the short term.

On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump said he would impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting Feb. 1st.

For companies like Healthy Crunch, the future seems less certain.

“It’s hard to say. Right now, there’s 50 per cent of me saying it’s going to happen. The other half of me says it’s not going to happen, so I’m kind of on the fence,” Bednarski says.

Charlebois predicts tariffs would create food inflation in American grocery stores, so tariffs on food exports are something Trump may avoid altogether.

“Americans will feel immediately, almost at the grocery store. It will take just days before they actually start seeing prices go higher. And I’m not sure Trump actually wants to do that,” he said.