this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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34
Why aren’t there more Indigenous foods in 'Canadian' grocery stores? (indiginews.com)
submitted 1 week ago by Wren@lemmy.today to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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Walking down the aisles of one of “Canada’s” major groceries, it’s rare to see Indigenous food products. Even in smaller, independently-owned retailers, they are still few and far between. Fish might be from Alaska and seaweed from Japan, despite being plentiful on the coast of “British Columbia” and harvested by local First Nations. There are many “Canadian” products big and small, but Indigenous producers, as well as their local traditional foods, are rare. Where are the Indigenous goods?

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[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago

There's a "chain" in BC that's owned and run by first Nations, only three locations that I'm aware of but it's in three different cities..

It's pretty decent, almost like a cross between Starbucks and Tim Hortons, but with a first Nations theme to it.

Instead of doughnuts they serve bannock with flavours like Saskatoon berry frosting or apple cinnamon. It's very good.

They also have great coffee.

For food they have stuff like bannock with bowls of salad with various meats like salom or venison. I usually try to eat there at least once for lunch when I'm passing through one of those cities.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Bannock mix?

It's literally flour, baking powder, and a bit of salt, oil, and water.

Why the hell would you need a mix for it?

It doesn't even need to use milk or eggs like pancakes, which is often why those have pre-mixes.

[–] Sturgist@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's also a FN twist on a SCOTTISH food. It's a FN food only due to genocide and colonialism.

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

All foods come from somewhere, this is unnecessary offence at nothing.

[–] Madcaptainredbush@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Yeah, so anything I've seen made traditionally by Aboriginals is based on corn, wheat and smoked meat, for the most part. All regular items at the grocery store. They don't really have "products" the same way that we do in western diets. From what I've seen they like to make things fresh and on-the-spot, unless they are making something like smoked salmon. Having "products" means mass-producing and using artificial preservatives and the like, and that doesn't sound like the traditional ways of living off the land that they are so well known for. And they've never exactly been known for having complicated recipes, which is also why you don't see any of them in stores. But if you wanna know what they eat on a regular day-to-day basis, it's literally the exact same shit we do lol spaghetti, Doritos, pizza, whatever you can think of that's in your diet, it's in theirs too. They're normal people with North American Diets just like the rest of us.

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The article isn't about diets, it's about how difficult it is for small, indigenous businesses to stock larger grocery chains — But diets can vary greatly between different tribes and locations. Remote communities have a hard time getting conventional products, which can be prohibitively expensive due to transportation costs, so a number of people rely on traditional hunting and local foods. Inuit still hunt seals, northern BC is big on the salmon catch, and deer are big in the prairies.

Pemican, salted fish and jams are all shelf-stable, traditional and use natural preservatives. Making products doesn't mean mass-production either, I worked at a small food production business for five years, and our biggest batches were around 40 pieces at a time.

Not to mention that seasonal harvests and hunts were a big part of the hunter gatherer lifestyle, where a whole community would come together to work through a salmon catch, game, and harvests. Mass production was absolutely a traditional part of indigenous life.

They definitely had complicated recipes, too. In just the northern Okanagan tribes, they made a bread from black moss, herbs and fruit. They also whipped up saponin rich berries into a kind of cream mixed with preserves and berries for a dessert, for just a couple examples. Foods of the BC interior first peoples are actually pretty fascinating. Seasonings and involved production methods were widely used as well.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 week ago

Y'know, that applies for the hunter-gatherers, but I have to wonder if people like the Iroquois had a cuisine before the whole genocide thing happened.

[–] Typotyper@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Where are the customers. Demand will drive supply.

[–] Wren@lemmy.today 2 points 1 week ago

The invisible hand is greedy and slaps small businesses with fees for products damaged in its stores. There's this cool new thing we're doing called reading the article.

[–] bookmeat@lemmynsfw.com -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Same reason that most authentic cuisines aren't popular: they're just not that great and are very basic. They need modernisation and integration with new ingredients and processes to stand out and be palatable to new audiences.