2 days ago
Missing your fill of dill without Bick's? Meet Essex County's own longtime pickle packer
Bick's pickles are no longer stocked on some Canadian store shelves.
Some of the cucumbers are grown in southwestern Ontario, but most pickles are canned in the U.S. This means they now face a 25 per cent tariff when shipped back into Canada. That's made them pricier and harder to find.
After hearing about this, Paul Antonel from Harrow, Ont., reached out to CBC News about a local pickle option.
"Lakeside Pickles are grown and processed right here in Essex County," he said in an email. "They are the best pickles in every category, and our family buys them all the time."
Don Woodbridge and his family have been packing pickles and other veggies at their plant near Harrow since 1948.
"We've had some hard times, but … it's just sailing away now," he said.
Many Ontario pickle companies have either gone out of business, moved to the U.S., or begun buying the cucumbers from places such as India, according to Woodbridge.
Since Trump came back into office, he says Canadians have seemingly turned against American-made pickles.
"A lot of the stores are kind of de-listing them."
Woodbridge says he's received requests for his pickles to be shipped to Canadian destinations as far away as Kamloops, B.C., and Summerside, P.E.I.
"We're very proud of our flavour. We guard our spicing. We make a joke that it's like a Coca-Cola formula. We pack very fresh product."
Lakeside Pickles gets its cucumbers and peppers from Chatham and Kingsville, he says.
Pickles are caught in the tariff war, according to the CEO of TreeHouse Foods Inc., which owns the Bick's brand.
Steve Oakland previously told CBC News he's "sad to hear" Bick's is a casualty of the tax levy dispute between the two countries.
After the U.S. slapped tariffs on Canadian goods in March, the Canadian government retaliated with a long list of counter tariffs, among them a 25 per cent tariff on "cucumbers and gherkins."
"I think a lot of retailers feel that 25 per cent tariff makes them just too expensive, frankly," Oakland said.
Tariff pickle: Canadian canning choice
The story of Bick's is a telling case study in how government policies can backfire, punishing consumers and domestic suppliers alike, according to Sylvain Charlebois.
He's the director of the Dalhousie University agri-food analytics lab.
"Only in Canada can a cucumber be grown here, shipped south duty-free, jarred with a Canadian lid, and then taxed on its way home — proof that our tariff policy is less about protecting producers and more about punishing consumers," Charlebois said in an online commentary.
WATCH | Bick's pickles no longer stocked in some stores due to 'tariff impacts':
Bick's pickles no longer stocked in some stores due to 'tariff impacts'
3 days ago
Bick's, a popular Canadian pickle brand assembled in the U.S., is facing a 25 per cent Canadian retaliatory tariff, making its pickles pricier and harder to find. Experts say companies dealing with complex cross-border supply chains have been hit especially hard by the trade war.
While Bick's is no longer fully Canadian, parts of its supply chain remain here. The company still sources cucumbers from Canadian growers and lids from Canadian manufacturers. Under CUSMA, these raw cucumbers can cross into the U.S. without tariffs.
Charlebois says while some people may argue TreeHouse should reopen a plant in Canada, he believes the economics of food processing "make little sense" for them to shift production north.
"In reality, they may simply abandon the Canadian market altogether."
