Alberta-made app helps consumers shop for locally made goods

From locally made gifts to cooking ingredients, the Made in Alberta app is helping connect consumers with local products. Sasha Pietramala reports.

A new application has launched in Alberta to help consumers find local goods amid tariff challenges.

The Made in Alberta app was developed by the Alberta Food Processors Association (AFPA) in order to support local businesses while keeping money within the province.

• Get the latest Edmonton updates right to your inbox

According to Bianca Parsons, the executive director for AFPA, the app currently hosts more than 3,000 local products from 900-plus companies to give Albertans local options when shopping for their day-to-day groceries.

“We want to remind people … It’s so important to help our local economy by supporting businesses that are made right here in Alberta,” Parson told CTV News Edmonton on Monday.

“We kept hearing from people: ‘I really struggle finding something local.’ We wanted to say this can be solved so easily. All you have to do is take a photo with the app, or search a company, or search a product, search a type of product, and it gives you a whole list of local alternatives,” she said.

Parsons said the vendors can apply to have their products on the app with ease, but with the requirement that the “last substantial transformation” of the product must be done within Alberta.

Being on the app can help vendors make their products more accessible for customers and improve their overall sales, which is top of mind for chocolatetier Antoine Lavoie, founder of Lavo Chocolate Maker.

“For us, it was really important (to join) because we’re definitely not street facing, we’re tucked away,” Lavoie told CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday.

“This app will definitely bring a lot more people in the store or just to visit our website and maybe purchase online. That will definitely help us tremendously,” said Lavoie.

Nathan Satanove, the owner and operator of Pasta Pantry, also joined Made in Alberta to help support local shopping by making his offerings available to a wider market.

“Currently on the app, we have our fresh pastas, our meatballs, our chicken parmigiana. However, we could have a full catalog on the app, and we will very soon,” Satanove said.

“It’s small businesses that don’t have the marketing budget that the big box corporations do, and there’s a lot of amazing creators and producers in Edmonton and areas in Alberta that make amazing products, and this way the consumer is going to be able to find them quicker,” he added.

For more information on the app, or if you want to sign up as a consumer or a vendor, visit the Made in Alberta website.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Sasha Pietramala