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MARKET OPPORTUNITIES
Baby Boom Generation - Increasingly placing demands for smaller serving sizes, easy-to-use packaging, easy-to-read labels, and more nutritious product formulations. With greater interest in health and convenience, consumption patterns are starting to skew towards quick, low-fat, low calorie, and low cholesterol options.
Ethnic foods - Sales of ethnic foods continue to grow as they become more mainstream. Ethnic foods will drive volume particularly in the frozen foods category over the next decade.
Gourmet products - Specialty food stores will thrive, as unique, upscale and expensive products are accepted as small indulgences for consumers who seek gourmet products.
Innovation - Convenience foods will remain popular with continuing innovation, e.g., baby milk sold in pre-packaged disposable bottles, and tea and coffee that heat themselves.
Commuting - "Dashboard dining" is on the rise - if processors can make their product fit into a cup holder, consumers will eat it in the car.
Organics - The demand for organics is growing. About 64% of consumers believe organics are better, and 68% said they would pay a 10% premium for them. Natural food sales are growing at 14% per year, while organic food sales are growing at 24% per year.
One-dish meals - Growth in quick meal kits and comfort food in stores is expected.
Food safety concerns - Increasing concern for food safety is leading consumers to feel more reassured by familiar brand names, best-before dates, and pre- packaged products.
Dual incomes - The increase of dual income households is impacting the marketplace, as increased purchasing power contribute to the demand for food that is convenient to prepare, serve and store.
Refrigeration - Supermarket sales of prepared refrigerated foods continue to rise significantly.
Frozen bakery products - including doughs, part-baked and ready- baked products, are projected to be important players in future trends in the coming years. According to bakery owners across the country, the frozen baked goods market is rapidly expanding.
U.S. Market Influence - Popular trends in the U.S. are often embraced in Canada. For example, the popularity of Mexican foods cannot be linked to a large Mexican-Canadian population, but probably results from a trend started in the United States.
Increased tourism, business travel and the number of Canadians eating in restaurants, hotels and other retail foodservice locations are contributing to this trend.
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Furniture. Growth in the furniture industry closely relates with the growth of the economy, particularly construction developments in commercial and residential sectors. Over the next few years, the Canadian furniture market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 2.5-3%. The boundaries between different interior styles such as traditional, contemporary, colonial and avant garde have become much vaguer, with the mixing of different styles and fashions to suit personal tastes, comfort, budget and sense of style.
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Electronics. The Canadian electronic component industry provides a wide array of products that range from relatively simple electrical connectors, to integrated circuits containing millions of transistors on a single chip, to complex machines for semiconductor manufacturing. The majority of these products are sold to manufacturing companies in the computer, telecommunications, consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace, medical, and other industrial sectors . As the Internet grows, so expands the electronic components industry, which supplies the capacitors, connectors, printed circuit boards, and semiconductors that make up the computers, modems and switches which comprise the Internet.
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The Canadian integrated circuit (IC) sector, which is a part of the electronic components industry, has been growing quickly along with the growth of IC end-user companies in the information technology industries. Since Canada does not have sufficient large-scale manufacturing facilities for semiconductors, it imports 93 percent of its IC requirements, of which approximately half come from the United States. The market is expected to have an annual growth rate of 15 percent over the next few years. There is strong demand for ICs in the telecommunications, computer equipment, geomatics, automotive, defense electronics, aerospace, and contract equipment manufacturing industries in Canada.
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Jewelry. Demand for fine jewelry in Canada is influenced by complex and interrelated economic, demographic and sociological factors. One factor that has been particularly significant over the last decade is the increase in the number of Canadian women moving up in business, social, and political circles who have increasing disposable income to purchase deluxe products. These factors have also led to increasing demand for higher-end costume jewelry as well.
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Garments. The key to successful marketing of apparel in Canada is quality, style, price and service. The Canadian market for apparel differs significantly from that of the United States, not only in size and price, but also in the variety of consumer preferences among regions and provinces.
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Construction
materials. The construction industry in Canada is expected to show robust growth over the next four years. Canada's building products industry encompasses more than 400 different manufactured products and is best noted for commodities like lumber, plywood, shingles, veneer and particleboard. Higher value-added building products manufactured in Canada include: prefabricated housing, metal, wood and plastic doors and windows, kitchen/bathroom cabinets, and hardwood flooring.
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Services. Canada is evolving into a knowledge-based economy. Service industries now employ three out of four Canadians. More and more, Canadians work in offices, stores or warehouses rather than farms, mines, mills or factories.
Source:
Exporting to
Canada
: A Handbook 7th Edition, US Country
Commercial Guide 2006, Trade Facilitation Office,
2006
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