Q&A: App helps shoppers buy Canadian one barcode at a time

February 8, 2025 Canuck

Canada and the U.S. have avoided a trade war — for now.

A 30-day armistice was reached before steep tariffs on imports came into effect in both countries.

During the buildup, however, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Canadians to check item labels to ensure they purchase Canada-made products.

A pair of Edmonton entrepreneurs, Matthew Suddaby and William Boytinck, have created an app called Shop Canadian to help with just that.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you guys get together on the app?

Boytinck: Matt and I met in high school, originally, close to eight years ago, and currently work together as software developers. I came up with this idea [last] weekend. I messaged him, and [we] started building it just then and there … I think, like everyone, we’ve been caught up in this sort of patriotic wave, and I think everyone also wants to support local — us included. So that was the original motivation.

How does it work?

Suddaby: It’s really simple. All you have to do is pull out your phone, find a barcode, scan it and it will show you the results. Right now, it will look at a database of company registrations for product codes and then it will show you if that company is registered in Canada, the U.S., or elsewhere.

Boytinck: We access sort of a standardization organization and that’s where we can pull these barcodes from. That’ll give us company registrations — among other data — and that’s what we use to filter by.

Have you got any feedback at all yet?

Boytinck: A lot. Over the past 24 hours, we’ve received hundreds of suggestions, hundreds of messages, lots of support — which is blown up far beyond what we ever expected. Right now, it’s a little overwhelming, but we’re doing our best to to make it better, to make it more accessible for people and keep it simple and fast and easy to use.

We’ve had people come on the show to talk about these things in the past. Often when you put it out there, there are a few bugs in the system that you might not have known about until people start using it. Have you noticed that yet at all?

Boytinck: We’re dealing with one issue right now, which is part of the reason why we’re starting to crowdsource — sometimes it’s really hard to identify exactly how Canadian a company is. For example, if it’s imported by a Canadian company and packaged in Canada, sometimes we’ll recognize it as Canadian. We’re having a few problems, right now, with just the amount of traffic we’re having, and the organization that we pull [data] from is starting to slow us down a little bit. But we’re working on that.

How many people have downloaded the app so far? And what do you think the possibility is?

Suddaby: We got data from the day before and it was 1,000. At this point, I would say we’re probably close to 2,000 [or] 3,000.

A white man with short dark hair is wearing a red plaid shirt, while sitting in a radio studio in front of a microphone. — Suddaby says at least 1,000 people have started using the app so far. (CBC)

Boytinck: I don’t know [the potential]. As long as people are using it, as long as we can help people shop Canadian, that’s the overall goal. It doesn’t matter how many people end up downloading it.

What’s it like to have your own app out there in the world and it’s starting to take off like this?

Boytinck: It’s definitely special having people give you lots of feedback and seeing comments being like, ‘Wow, I’m using this. It’s already helping.’ It’s definitely not a feeling we’ve experienced before. We’ve gotten lots of feedback, as software developers, for the products we’ve made before, but nothing on this personal level.

Listen to the full interview:

Edmonton AM6:21Supporting local with a new app

With tariffs from the U.S. still a looming threat, Canadians are looking for ways to support the local economy. Two Edmonton entrepreneurs created an app that will make it easier for people to identify Canadian made products. Matthew Suddaby and Will Boytinck are co-founders of the app Shop Canadian.

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