Sam Jenkins, the managing partner of Punchcard Systems, says his company's new Check the Label app can help consumers get something they seek — products made in Canada that can buffer the economic effect of American tariffs.
"We can't control what's going to happen for the next 30 days or for the next four years," Jenkins told Taproot. "When I think about what is most important, one of the things that's coming out of (the threat of tariffs) is that Canadians really do want to buy Canadian on a bunch of different fronts. One, to be able to support our economy. There's also a buy local component in terms of resiliency, and certainly around things like climate change."
When Estyn Edwards, Punchcard's partner and chief technology officer, brought Jenkins the idea (via his life partner) to give consumers more information about where products come from, the two mobilized their team. The company launched Check the Label on Feb. 10 after just two days of development. The tool is free to use in a browser and in apps for iOS and for Android. It enables users to scan a barcode, learn product info, and add insights to a growing database. It also harnesses several third-party artificial intelligence application programming interfaces to add data and display findings next to user votes on a product's country of origin.
On Feb. 13, Taproot tried the tool by scanning a box of Kraft Dinner and it didn't yield any AI-supplied details. "We're hitting our limit for how many AI queries we could have at once," Edwards told Taproot about the lack of results. He also said Check the Label experienced a 7,000% usage spike compared to three days prior.
The demand may make it sound like Check the Label has the potential to be a cash cow but that's not Punchcard's goal at the moment.
"There's probably a different answer today (to if we will commercialize Check the Label) than it will be tomorrow and next week and next month," Jenkins said. "We're an organization that has clients, and we try to drive profit just like any other business, but it's really empowering for our team to get to work on something that creates value that is non-commercial. I don't think we're going to commercialize the data."
Jenkins said he doesn't see the growing buy-Canadian trend as anti-American. Ultimately, he said, the onus for equitable international trade doesn't fall at the feet of buyers and sellers.
"We're not responsible as individuals in this ecosystem, in terms of the decisions that our governments are making, in terms of their economic negotiation," he said. "As an organization, while we're Canadian based, we do quite a bit of work in the U.S. as well. From our perspective, the best situation is the really safe and economically viable U.S.-Canadian border."
Fittingly, another inspiration for Check the Label is to bring greater clarity to what a "Canadian" product is within the official designations like Made in Canada, Product of Canada, Assembled in Canada, and Imported by Canada, which all have different meanings. Jenkins said the project also allows employees to enhance their skills and live their values. The Punchcard team also did socially minded work in 2020 with the COVID Continuity tool it built with The CommAlert Group and the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy Estimator it made with Video Tax News.
Edwards said Check the Label may have a larger spinoff benefit by demonstrating what Canadians want from their political leaders in this moment. Check the Label might help "push our politicians to have a little bit more say, and maybe hurt the people that are forcing these tariffs," he said.
Users can scan to learn more info about the origin of products and add their own insights using Check the Label by Punchcard Systems. (Supplied)
Punchard emerged from a project Jenkins and Edwards worked on for Buffalo Inspection Services in 2014, ultimately growing into a company that has served more than 150 clients with more than 50 full-time staff across four provinces. Punchcard also birthed a spinoff company called Standard Field Systems that helps police services test sobriety. In both 2023 and 2024, the company made The Globe and Mail's list of top growing companies in Canada.
Jenkins has a few thoughts for bigger-picture work to address the impact of potential tariffs.
"The easiest thing to do would be to remove interprovincial trade (barriers) from many, many, many, many goods to make (trade) easier to flow," he said. "If we were to remove any of those rich barriers to commerce, that likely far outstrips any of the loss that comes along with the tariffs."
Jenkins also said Canada should work to increase trade with other foreign partners, and paraphrased someone he met with from the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce on that point.
"If you had one customer, and they made up 80% of your business, you would probably build a strategy to find more customers," Jenkins said, recalling the point. "I think this is the story that Canadian businesses need to be reinforcing with our elected officials."
Looking ahead for Check the Label, Edwards, Jenkins, and the rest of the Punchcard team are already looking at new features and improvements to add. They want to improve camera functionality, particularly on iOS, add a login function so users can track their scans and contributions, find more data sources to populate its database, and more.
"We're trying to be very focused on: "Let's only build out what we need to build now," Jenkins said. "However, we have to keep an eye on what's possible for the future."
The company also wants the tool to go into the hands of manufacturers and retailers to get even more data on where products are made.
Punchcard isn't the only organization working to empower people to buy products that benefit Canadians. Shop Canadian, by William Boytinck and Matthew Suddaby, also harnesses users to determine where a product comes from, but does not use AI. It is available as an app on Google Play and on Apple's app store. The developers of Shop Canadian placed a call on Reddit for user uptake that also previews planned new features. Made in Alberta, by the Alberta Food Processors Association, is a website that has listed Albertan food and beverage products for the last two years. It may expand to other product types.