I worked in a border town for a few years and regularly went grocery shopping in the US. Canada has a much smaller market and population, obviously, and its own idiosyncrasies and comfort foods and Euro-nostalgia.
I grew up eating Colby cheese, but have noticed it’s pretty hard to find in general grocery stores, having been crowded out by many other varieties, though it still seems popular in the US. Wonder why, since it is pleasant and mild enough to please most palates.
Diet Grape Soda was never popular in Canada but can only be found at some of the local McD’s with Freestyle selection. Again, with diet drinks being quite popular it is odd the selection is usually limited to cola, or worse, just Diet Coke.
Any other foods you like that have become archaic or harder to find?
I wonder if this is a southern Canada vs northern US thing. I think I’ve only seen diet grape a handful of times. Pure Colby is rare, though Colby-Jack is pretty common. West coast US.
When I lived in northern Michigan, we used to make a shopping trip to Sault Ste. Marie Canada at least every year, to stock up on all kinds of things that were either unavailable or very expensive in the USA. Canada’s very large and diverse immigrant community was well provided for in supermarkets, the kinds of things that in the US were only available at very high priced specialty stores. Fall vegetables are amazingly cheap in Canada, less than half of US prices for things like onions, carrots, cabbage.
Going back a few decades, during the Cold War, Canadian supermarkets were full of very cheap products imported from Soviet Bloc countries.
It often surprises me how cheap eggs and dairy are in the US (Canada has marketing boards that subsidize farmers) and how expensive processed foods and veggies are. Mexico has cheap fruits and veggies, they can be cheap or pricy depending where one shops.
Diet vanilla Coke and diet cream soda are hard to find on Vancouver Island anyway.
I make “diet vanilla” Coke by using sugar-free vanilla coffee syrup–I think someone on this very board gave me that tip! Diet cream soda used to be around, but I rarely see it, apart from a small brand version using stevia. I tried it and didn’t like it.
Yep, eggs and dairy are about 75% as expensive in the US (even after accounting for the exchange). Back when the currencies were at par, the American dairy and eggs were about 50% of the Canadian price. A lot of the American border grocery stores had “Welcome, Canadians!” signs out front.
I enjoy exotic cheeses, but they are prohibitively expensive in Canadian grocery stores.
IMHO:
One item that you can’t buy in Canada is good quality bacon. The quality of American belly bacon is far better than Canadian belly bacon. Sometimes my local Canadian grocery store will carry bacon from an American packer and it’s wonderful. Canadian made belly bacon is watery and falls apart.
FWIW, on one of my trips to the supermarket in Soo Canada, I was chatting with a stocker in the store. He told me there is a guy in Grand Rapids Michigan who owns a grocery store, and he makes the all-day drive up in a truck every couple of months and buys buik. A lot of things are cheaper retail in Canada, than wholesale in the USA. And that was when the Canadian dollar was still about 95c US (it’s now 75c).
I think on that particular trip, I bought 50 pounds of cabbage for 9c a pound.
Similar to your grocery man - when I was in college in Michigan my roommates would make a regular trip to Canada to purchase in bulk a certain leafy produce that they would then sell to other college kids.
There is a stereotype that black people drink grape soda. Regardless of whether or not there’s any basis behind it, the belief might explain why American stores are more likely to stock grape soda than Canadian stores.
