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With recent tariff talks stirring concerns about cross-border trade, shopping local is more important than ever. Supporting local businesses by focusing spending on Canadian-made products helps strengthen our economy, protects jobs, and ensures that household spending is reinvested back into our community. With online, in-store, and community markets, shopping local in Innisfil has never been easier.
Business owners like Andrew de Jong, owner of JustSimcoe.ca, are making shopping local easy and convenient for consumers.
“I think supporting homegrown businesses is not just a good initiative, but it's economic self-defence,” says de Jong. “When we buy local, we create a more resilient economy and it's less impacted by forces out of our control.”
In de Jong’s case, JustSimcoe.ca brings together local products under one site with free same-day delivery, providing a competitive resource for those who want easy online access to local products.
“It's not just the initial impact of keeping those dollars local,” reminds de Jong, “it's really providing a better trajectory for those local businesses in the years and decades to come.”
Stores like Alcona Beach Health Shoppe are also honing in on Canadian products, including those made right here in Innisfil.
Almost all of the inventory sold at Alcona Beach Health Shoppe is Canadian. The store features a range of Innisfil-based products such as food, body care and jewelry, as well as other Canadian-made supplements, pet care, and lifestyle products. Supporting local is vital to building a healthy Innisfil, and a thriving Canadian economy, says owner Kimberly Hunter-Gafur.
“The more that we do locally, the more it will encourage everything else in Canada – manufacturing, farming – so that Canada can be self-sufficient,” she says.
In Innisfil, accessing locally produced necessities like produce, baking, and fresh-made meals is also made easy through organizations such as the Innisfil Farmers’ Market. The Farmers’ Market, which runs from June through October and features just over thirty vendors, supports the traditional objectives of shopping local, such as strengthening the economy, protecting jobs, reducing dependence on cross-border trade, and encouraging more direct connections between farmers and producers and the local community.
“Being able to speak to your local vendors face-to-face builds a level of trust that can translate into a lifelong customer,” says Amanda Scott, Treasurer, noting that in addition to sales, the market also hosts fun community events throughout its season.
The Town of Innisfil, and the Innisfil Economic Development Department, believe in the power of supporting local businesses and retailers and in 2024 initiated the “Shop Innisfil” campaign to highlight local retailers, restaurants and businesses and educate the community on the numerous benefits of shopping locally. To learn more, visit the Shop Innisfil webpage at innisfil.ca/ShopLocal.
This spring we encourage you to make the easy choice, invest in your community and shop local!
This project is funded in part by the Government of Ontario and the Town of Innisfil.
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