Last year Chapman’s Ice Cream committed to not raising their prices and now the company will take it a step further, announcing they are committing to reduce their reliance on the United States supply chain by 70 per cent by mid 2027. “Frankly, it’s the right thing to do, a lot of other Canadian companies don’t have the same financial strength that we have, and they have to make some really hard decisions,” said chief operating officer Ashley Chapman. “But for any businesses like ours that can make that decision and make that push, I hope they follow suit.” Chapman’s has put their efforts in supporting local suppliers and venturing out into European and South American suppliers, using almonds as an example. Our almonds, we got to make sure the almonds are cut the same way, we’ve got to make sure that they have the same sugar content on them, we got to make sure the flavor is still the same," said Chapman. Chapman added suppliers who might have not had the capacity for them in the past have reengaged in conversations due to the uncertainty in the USA. A lot of these companies, let’s be honest, they may not have had capacity for us, but the turmoil in the United States that’s made them pretty much one of the most unreliable trade partners in the world,“ said Chapman. ”Suddenly, people around the globe are saying we need to allocate capacity to other people." Meanwhile, manufacturing facilities like Prodomax in Barrie are also doing what it can during trade uncertainty especially when it comes to relationships with American counterparts Michael Macdonald, CEO of Prodomax said they are doing what it can to create relationships with their neighbours to the south. “It represents a significant portion of what our business is, so we have a few strategies at play to protect both parties, whether it’s around mitigating some costs, exposure to components as they cross the border multiple times has compounding impacts,” said Macdonald. Each time a component crosses the border, it will now face tariff charges creating some friction when the product is finally created. “Going from a raw component to sort of raw material to a component to to an assembly to a module, it can cross that border five, six, seven times before it gets to the automotive OEM,” said Macdonald. “So it’s really about the goods that are crossing borders that impact us the most.” Adding diversifying and pivoting into other industries as a potential option “For the future, we’re looking at how we can diversify our project portfolio so that it can provide a little bit more resiliency,” said Macdonald.
