Logo first launched in 1978
When you walk the aisles of a grocery store, the products filling the shelves might have come from any number of countries – such is the nature of our global market.
Generally speaking, if you want to make sure a particular product is Canadian, you’ll need to spend some time reading the labels, which can be tricky to decipher. A product with over 51% Canadian content can be labelled as made in Canada, but it must be at least 98% Canadian content to be called a product of Canada.
The task of identifying Canadian products gets a lot easier once you hit the dairy section of the grocery store, because over 8,800 products across 565 brands carry the Blue Cow Quality Milk logo.
Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) launched the logo in 1978 “to help consumers link all the efforts of Canadian dairy farmers to the dairy products they love. Although the logo has evolved over the years, it still represents the promise of 100% Canadian dairy produced on Canadian farms,” explained Pamela Nalewajek, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for DFC.
Any processor who wishes to use the logo has to meet the DFC’s eligibility conditions and complete a personalized license agreement with the organization; there is no charge to use the certification logo.
Nalewajek said the logo “is a certification that can only be applied to products made with 100% Canadian milk and milk ingredients. This means the milk comes from Canadian farmers who follow some of the highest standards in the world.
Canadian dairy farmers follow strict animal care protocols, employ sustainable farming practices as they work towards reaching net-zero by 2050, and do not use any artificial growth hormones.
Additionally, Canada’s quality assurance program, proAction, is mandatory on all dairy farms.”
She added, “For shoppers looking to buy Canadian, the Blue Cow logo is a quick and easy way to know that what they are choosing supports our nation’s dairy farmers and their local economy. With over 9,000 dairy farms and more than 500 processors, dairy has been key to Canada’s rural communities for generations.”
Nalewajek noted that Canada’s dairy sector supports more than 195,000 full-time equivalent jobs, while also contributing $19 billion to Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) annually.
Something consumers may not know is that while the logo’s default colour is bright blue, it will sometimes appear on a package in black or dark blue. The meaning of the logo remains the same regardless.
“DFC allows companies to adjust the logo to accommodate the ink used on their existing packaging. When blue is not used, the next darkest colour is the default colour,” Nalewajek said.
