Add your brand 🇨🇦
If you run a Canadian business, we want you in here. It costs nothing, there is no paid placement, and every application is read by a person. Below is exactly what qualifies — the same bar we apply when we research brands ourselves — and the form to send us yours.
Two different bars
Being a Canadian company and making a product in Canada are separate questions, and we answer them separately. Passing the first gets you listed. Passing the second also earns the maple-leaf origin badge on the products it covers.
1. Your company: a head office in Canada
The bar is head office in Canada. That is the whole test for getting listed. Selling in Canada isn’t enough on its own.
Foreign ownership is not a disqualifier — a company headquartered in Canada counts even when a foreign parent owns it. What does disqualify a brand is a head office outsideCanada, including a Canadian-founded brand that has since moved its head office elsewhere. If your company describes itself as based in several countries at once, tell us which one is the primary head office; we need positive evidence that it’s Canada.
2. Your products: the “Made in Canada” rule
For a product to carry an origin claim, we use the Competition Bureau’s Made in Canada standard: the last substantial transformation of the good happened in Canada, and at least 51% of the total direct costs of producing it were incurred here.
Imported inputs are allowed — that is exactly what separates Made in Canada from Product of Canada, which requires 98%. Roasting imported green coffee here counts; reselling someone else’s roasted beans doesn’t. Turning cacao into bars here counts; re-wrapping imported chocolate doesn’t. More on what the rules actually say, or read the Competition Bureau guidance directly.
You do notneed to clear this second bar to be listed. Most brands in the directory don’t.
What we check
- 🍁Where your head office is. Usually straight from your own site or a public company record.
- 🍁First-party evidence for any origin claim. Your own website or product copy saying where the thing is made. A directory listing or a press profile is a lead, not evidence — so if the sentence exists on your site, a link straight to it is the single most useful thing you can send.
- 🍁Which product lines the claim covers. Almost every maker also sells things it didn’t make. We scope an origin claim to the product types you actually produce here rather than badging a whole catalogue, so tell us where the line is.
- 🍁The store your customers buy from. We match listings on the exact storefront domain, so give us the one people actually check out on — not a marketing microsite.
🍁One limit worth knowing about
Our product search builds its catalogue by reading a store’s Shopifyproduct feed, and today that is the only storefront platform it can read. If your shop runs on WooCommerce, Squarespace, Wix or something you built yourself, you can still be listed and still carry your badges — but your individual products won’t turn up in search results until we add support for your platform.
Apply anyway.We’d rather know you exist than not, and we mean that practically: the applications we get are how we decide which platform to build support for next, so a Canadian maker we can’t read yet is the argument for doing that work. That is the only reason the form asks what you’re running on — it changes nothing about whether you qualify.
Send us your brand
Nothing here is a trick question — if you’re not sure about the origin details, say so and send it anyway.
Frequently asked questions
- Does it cost anything to be listed?
- No. Applying is free and being listed is free. There is no paid placement and nobody will ask you for payment.
- My company is Canadian but my products are made overseas. Can I still be listed?
- Yes. Most brands in the directory are in exactly that position. If your head office is in Canada you can be listed as a Canadian brand — you just won't carry the stricter “Made in Canada” origin badge, which describes where a product is made rather than who makes it.
- We're Canadian but a foreign company owns us. Does that disqualify us?
- No. The bar is where the head office is, not who owns the shares. A company headquartered in Canada counts even when a foreign parent owns it. What does disqualify a brand is a head office outside Canada — including a Canadian-founded brand that has since moved its head office elsewhere.
- Our store isn't on Shopify. Should we still apply?
- Yes — please do. Product search builds its catalogue by reading a store's Shopify product feed, and Shopify is the only platform it can read today, so a shop on WooCommerce, Squarespace or a custom build can be listed and carry its badges but won't have individual products turning up in search results yet. Applying still counts for something: the platform question on the form is how we work out which platform to support next, and the brands we can't read today are the argument for building it.
- What counts as evidence that a product is made in Canada?
- Something you have published yourself — your own website or product copy stating where the item is made. A third-party directory listing or a press profile is a useful lead, but it isn't evidence we can rely on.
- We make some of our products here and resell others. What then?
- Tell us which lines you make. An origin claim is scoped to specific product types rather than applied to a whole catalogue, so the things you make here can be badged without badging the things you don't.
- How long does it take?
- There's no set turnaround. Every application is checked by hand against the two bars above, and this is a small project — so we can't promise a date. We'll only contact you if we need something to finish the check.
The “Made in Canada” thresholds above summarise the Competition Bureau’s published guidance, “Product of Canada” and “Made in Canada” claims. Not legal advice.