Looking to buy Canadian? Manitoba man creates app for that

Hashim Farooq talks about his app CanMade and how it’s helping Canadians shop for local goods.

A Brandon, Man., man has made it easier for people to shop for Canadian goods as the country looks to buy local amid U.S. tariff threats.

Hashim Farooq created an app to help people determine whether a food product is made in Canada.

Farooq, who has been building apps since he was in Grade 9, launched ‘CanMade’ earlier in the month and has since gained more than 20,000 followers.

“I wanted to turn this around as quick as possible,” he said in an interview with CTV Morning Live on Tuesday.

“I believe the new deadline is somewhere in early March, so I wanted to get it out as fast as possible and get people using it and getting the hang of it before the tariff deadline hit.”

Using CanMade, shoppers can scan the barcode of an item. The app then checks with three different kinds of databases to decipher where the product was made.

It also includes a feature that tells users the percentage of their grocery list that is Canadian-made.

“It just makes you more conscious of what you’re buying and where what you’re buying is coming from,” Farooq said. “It makes you more self-aware.”

Farooq said this is the first time one of his apps has gained this much popularity in such a short period of time.

“I was shocked by the response, and I’ve been shocked by the amount of emails I get on a daily basis,” he said.

“A lot of just people saying ‘congratulations and a lot of people just supporting the cause and being like, ‘This is something that should be out there and that people really are using on a daily basis, especially on grocery trips.”

CanMade can be found for free in the App Store.

• With files from CTV’s Katherine Dow.