Made In Canada: How A Product Scanning App Built in 72 Hours Amassed 40,000 Downloads and Became a Media Sensation

In January 2025, just hours after being sworn in as President of the United States, Donald Trump announced his administration would be imposing tariffs on imports from Canada— America’s closest ally and largest trading partner.

In the first three months of Trump’s second term, the on-again, off-again tariffs—and threat of annexation—have upended diplomatic and historic relationships, rocked global markets, and cast a shadow of uncertainty and volatility across the entire world.

Coupled with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and never-ending battle with inflation, more and more Canadians are now intentionally seeking out domestic goods as an act of solidarity in the face of our trade war with our neighbours to the south.

As trade tensions continue to escalate, a new wave of Canadian patriotism has emerged through the ‘buy local’ movement in service of economic self-preservation and national pride. Ultimately, it has inspired Canadian consumers to rally around the ‘Buy Canadian’ movement.

But what does it actually mean to ‘Buy Canadian’?

Picture this: you’re standing in a crowded aisle at your local grocery store, staring at an endless sea of products stacked high above your head. You reach for an interesting item to learn about where this product was made. You stare blankly at the confusing product label. Product of Canada? Made in Canada? What does it all mean?

If this sounds familiar to you, then you’re certainly not alone. In a global economy where most products cross multiple borders along their journey from raw materials to finished goods, it can be extremely difficult to know and understand where your favourite products come from.

Canadian consumers face a labyrinth of complex and misleading product labels with vaguely familiar terms that sound similar but actually mean very different things. What makes a product truly ‘Canadian’ isn’t always as black and white as it may seem.

It is this lack of universal transparency in product labelling that inspired us to create Check the Label to help Canadian consumers better understand where the products they buy actually come from.

Check the Label represents more than just technological investment in Canadian innovation—it’s a testament to the power of tiny experiments with radical intent and our pioneering vibe sprint development process.

Enhanced by the strategic implementation of artificial intelligence, our multi-disciplinary team of developers, designers, technology specialists, marketers, and business strategists rapidly developed, iterated, and successfully launched a web and mobile app to market in just days—a mere fraction of the typical development timeline for custom software.