The great Canadian blueberry pancake

Every ingredient that goes into a great blueberry pancake is found right here in Canada, in abundance. In fact, Canada is the world’s leading maple syrup producer, second leading blueberry grower and among the leading wheat growers.

Blueberries, our home and native fruit

Blueberries are a native plant and Canada is the world’s second-largest blueberry producer following the United States.

Canadian farmers harvested 180 117 metric tonnes of blueberries in 2022. Just over three-fifths (61%) of the 2022 crop were wild blueberries from Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Cultivated blueberries are grown mostly in British Columbia, with smaller contributions from Quebec and Nova Scotia.

Celebrating blueberry pancake day this year?

You won’t find fresh locally grown blueberries on store shelves in January in Canada.

In January 2023, 4.3 million kilograms of fresh blueberries were imported into Canada, with most coming from Chile, Mexico and Peru.

Frozen blueberries top fresh when it comes to food availability

When it comes to food availability, there were more frozen blueberries available than fresh in 2022, at 2.0 kilograms available per Canadian.

Fresh blueberry availability was down from the record high 1.9 kilograms per person in 2021 to 1.4 kilograms in 2022. 

Canadian wheat helps feed the world

Canada consistently ranks among the top wheat producers in the world. In 2023, total wheat production fell 6.9% to 32.0 million tonnes, likely because of dry conditions on the Prairies.

Canada exported 18.5 million tonnes of wheat in 2022, with most destined for China, Japan, the United States, Indonesia and Colombia.

Eggs aplenty

Canadian hens laid a record high 867 million eggs in 2022, up 2.2% from a year earlier. Nine in ten eggs laid in 2022 were headed for the kitchen in one form or another, the remainder were headed for the hatchery to continue the age old saga of which comes first, the chicken or the egg.

Don’t forget the milk

Canadian dairy farmers sell over 200,000 kilolitres of milk for fluid purposes every month, with October 2023 topping 228,000 kilolitres.

We corner the market on maple syrup

Of course, no blueberry pancake is complete without a generous helping of maple syrup.

Maple syrup production fell 40% from the record high of a year earlier to 10.4 million gallons in 2023, the lowest harvest since 2015. Weather, as always, played a key role in the annual harvest and a late winter ice storm, combined with variable temperatures greatly lowered yield.

Most of the maple syrup harvested globally comes from Canadian maples, with Quebec alone accounting for 90% of national production in 2023.