Local business popping support

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on March 1, 2025.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Joel Cote, founder of Crafted Corn, says he believes it is important to support the local economy, especially with the looming threat of tariffs.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

A Lethbridge man is supporting local businesses, while others are supporting his business, because he believes the local economy needs not only for people to buy Canadian products, but to do so in a way that keeps their money local to southern Alberta.

Joel Cote, founder of Crafted Corn says he makes sure that the seven ingredients he uses for his hand crafted caramel popcorn are as local as they can be, because he believes that is the best way to keep our local economy going.

“I bolstered my supply chain back in the beginning of November. I only had one product I was sourcing out of the United States and that was my popcorn. I was sourcing it out of the Kansas area,” says Cote.

He says he was sourcing it out but even before American president Donald Trump started talking about tariffs and when he was talking about deporting immigrants, Cote thought the price of corn would go up.

 “I thought that the price of all of our products will go up if that happens, and I’m sourcing my corn which is going to be affected and I can’t do that anymore. In reality, that is something I should have been sourcing from Canada to begin with because it’s important to me.”

Cote says now everything he uses is sourced from Canada with most of it being sourced right here in southern Alberta.

“I use Rogers sugar exclusively, I buy it through somebody who buys it directly through them, who is locally owned out in Picture Butte. I also sourced my corn syrup from them, which is sourced from a Canadian company as well,” says Cote.

 He adds that even though he would love to source his popcorn from Taber, he has not found anyone who grows the type of corn he needs to make popcorn.

“I am not exactly sure where is sourced but it is Canadian. I would love to source my popcorn if I could though,” says Cote.

 He explains that the vanilla he uses for his product is the one product he sources out of Mexico, but it is sourced from a local distributor in Lethbridge, which keeps the money local.

“I try to keep everything as local to as possible in southern Alberta because if I’m dropping $2,000 a month on brown sugar, I want that $2,000 to stay locally because those people have kids that go to school here,” says Cote. “But if instead, I buy my sugar from somewhere else from Canada, but it’s out east somewhere, those $2,000 is going there and it’s completely out of our economy and in somebody else’s economy.”

 He says that when people support local, they keep the money here now more than ever it is important to do so, because everything is about to get even more expensive than it already is.

 “We’re all going to hurt, so if we can keep supporting ourselves here and keep our money in Lethbridge and southern Alberta, we’ll reduce that hurt because we will be basically trading amongst ourselves,” says Cote.

He says he has been receiving the support from multiple business because of this, starting with Cuppers Coffee, which was one of the first businesses to allow his product to be displayed in.

“Safeway/Sobeys/IGA are also really good at supporting local through their programs, that support local companies like mine. Without them, I probably wouldn’t have a company. But now I am multiple of their stores,” says Cote. “I’m in every Safeway and Sobeys in Lethbridge. In Okotoks I’m in Safeway and I’m in nine various Safeways and Sobeys in Calgary, mostly South Calgary.”