Since US President Donald Trump first announced his intention to impose punishing tariffs on Canadian goods heading to the United States, more and more Canadians have been considering a “buy Canadian” approach when shopping.

That’s not easy as you might think, especially when it comes to grocery items.

Sylvain Charlebois of the Agri-Foods Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia says avoiding certain American products can still have a negative impact on Canadian workers and companies.

He admits consumers have to work a little harder to figure out what products are local, and what are not.

As an example Charlebois says, while some might consider PepsiCo a foreign company, it actually operates six plants in Canada producing a range of products from drinks to chips.

“Lays chips, Doritos, a lot of products we actually buy are made in Canada. Heinz, Kraft, actually produce a lot of local products, peanut butter, ketchup, all locally manufactured, but the brand is foreign. So it really depends how you define local.”