LONDON, England – It’s not the London of tourist brochures.
The corner of Rupert Street and Brewer Street is in the heart of Soho, an area where most of life’s social niceties don’t apply.
Gaudy neon lights advertise a variety of entertainments, passersby are routinely offered companionship by strangers and disheveled, vaguely threatening characters sit on the curb eyeing the passing parade of gawkers and shoppers.
But whenever the denizens of this seedy neighborhood decide they need a break from whatever it is they do, they can have a cup of tea, and feast on some good old-fashioned Canadian style food.
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The cafe on this busy corner is the Canadian Muffin Company, one of about a dozen of the Vancouver-owned outlets scattered throughout the English capital.
As the name implies, it specializes in the muffin, a mundane snack in Canada but an exotic foreign food here in England.
Along with other storefront businesses like the Maple Leaf Pub and the Canadian Grill, they constitute only the most visible signs of the burgeoning trade in agricultural and food products between the former mother country and colony.
The U.K. is the world’s second biggest market for food and beverages, and Canada is grabbing a growing piece of the action.
Value of export sales
Last year Canada sold $261 million worth of agricultural and food products to the United Kingdom, an increase of 40 percent from three years earlier.
When fish is included, the value of trade in 1996 was $361 million, a figure Canadian trade officials say could reach $500 million by 2000.
Western Canadian agricultural exporters are used to being exhorted to look across the Pacific Ocean, to take advantage of the increased demand from rapidly growing, increasingly wealthy Asian countries.
But Ezio DiEmanuele, agricultural trade specialist at the Canadian High Commission, says they shouldn’t forget to look in the other direction now and then.
“The Asia Pacific region and Latin America are growth markets, no ifs, ands or buts about that,” he said, adding with an ironic smile that a few years ago he was posted in Japan, promoting trade to that part of the world.
“But I don’t think we as a country should strategically ignore the opportunities that Europe has to offer, not only in terms of trade but more importantly in terms of investment.”
British firms don’t just buy Canadian agricultural products, they also put money back into the Canadian industry. The U.K. is the second biggest foreign investor in Canada after the U.S, and within that total, the food sector is second only to the finance and securities sector.
While Canada faces some tariff and other trade barriers when competing in the U.K. market with European suppliers, DiEman-uele said those barriers are gradually coming down. And he added, Canadian companies have done well by concentrating on high-value products, which makes the tariffs less of an issue.
Sitting in the Canadian High Commission’s board room, overlooking leafy Grosvenor Square in the heart of Mayfair, one of London’s toniest districts, the affable DiEmanuele says there’s another reason for the increased sales across the Atlantic.
“There’s a growing Canadian interest in the U.K. market as being the beachhead to the European Union market as a whole,” he said. Exporters figure if they can get established in the U.K., it will be that much easier to move their goods across the English Channel to the rest of the continent. And there’s a certain degree of comfort starting off in Britain, with its traditional historical and cultural linkages to Canada.
A walk through a typical grocery store in England reveals a growing list of Canadian products.
There are the expected old favorites, products traditionally identified with Canada like maple syrup, flour and rye whisky. But joining them recently have been such things as barbeque sauces, frozen buffalo burgers, vegetable hot dogs, salad oil, wild rice, mustard seed, bottled water, juices and flaxseed.
Canadians are even selling biscuits to the Brits, somewhat akin to selling the proverbial ice to Eskimos.
Bison big seller
One of the Canadian products making its mark is bison meat from B&E Ranches of Smoky Lake, Alta.
In an interview published in a recent Canadian government publication called CanadExport, B&E vice-president Dan Plumb said sales are doing well in the U.K. market in the aftermath of the consumer scare over beef triggered by so-called mad cow disease.
“By slowly educating the public about the natural grazing and feeding of our bisons, shoppers are slowly making an educated choice that not all red meat is the same,” he said.
Packaging, customer communication, transportation and delivery have been crucial to his company’s successes in the U.K., he said, along with advance research and assistance from Canadian government trade officials.
DiEmanuele sees potential for growth in grain shipments, particularly in premium priced, value-added wheat products like specialty breads and flours.
For example, one supermarket chain sells a private label flour bearing a Canadian flag, while another miller sells bread that’s advertised as being made from Canadian flour.
Canada has a reputation for high quality, safe food and that is paying off in the British market.
“Consumers are more and more concerned about the ingredients in their foods, the quality and safety of their foods,” he said, in light of a series of crises in recent years involving BSE, E. coli and salmonella.
“It’s a terrible thing to say we’re taking advantage of another country’s ills, but it’s a competitive international marketplace and we have high quality products to offer and our food safety track record is one of the best in the world.”
And Canada has something else going for it besides the skill of its business people, the quality of their products and the hard work of trade officials like DiEmanuele.
The Brits like us.
Even in today’s market-driven, free trading world economy, the strong historical, social and cultural ties between the two countries comes in handy.
“The majority of British clients continue to have a good feeling about dealing with Canadian suppliers,” said DiEmanuele. “That doesn’t hurt.”
