Twelve Canadian products we believe could travel well

This is a shortlist rather than a survey, and it is a view rather than a finding. Every duty position below was read off a primary source and carries the date it was read. Which of these products is worth your capital is our commercial judgement, and the commercial view is ours.

One organising idea runs through it. A duty rate on its own tells you very little. What tells you something is the gap between the general rate and the preferential one, because that gap is the advantage an agreement actually confers. A line that is free for everybody is an open market with no edge in it. A line at 27 per cent that falls to nothing under CPTPP is a structural position.

So the list is ordered by where we think the commercial case is strongest, not by category.

The ones where the agreement does real work

### 1. Frozen Atlantic lobster

Vietnam charges 27 per cent at the general rate and nothing under CPTPP. Thailand charges 20 per cent with no relief available. Malaysia and Singapore charge nothing either way.

The Vietnamese gap is the largest on this list. On a three million dollar programme it is worth over eight hundred thousand dollars a year, and it is conditional on origin documentation that comes from you rather than on the agreement existing.

### 2. Snow crab

The same shape as lobster: 27 per cent into Vietnam falling to free, 20 per cent into Thailand with nothing available, 15 per cent into the Philippines. A natural second line for the same buyers and the same cold chain.

### 3. Frozen wild blueberries

Vietnam charges 30 per cent at the general rate and nothing under CPTPP. Malaysia charges 5 per cent falling to free. Thailand charges the greater of 30 per cent or 25 baht per kilogram, with no relief.

Thirty points is the difference between a Canadian berry being in a formulation and being designed out of it. The buyer here is often a beverage or dairy formulator rather than a retailer, which is a longer sale and a stickier one.

### 4. Dried cranberries

Also 30 per cent into Vietnam falling to free, and 10 per cent into the Philippines. Shelf stable, ambient shipping, no cold chain: the lowest-friction way to test a Vietnamese ingredient position that we can see on this list.

### 5. Rolled oats

Vietnam charges 15 per cent on rolled oats and nothing on whole oats, and CPTPP takes the rolled line to free. That is tariff escalation, and removing it is what makes it possible to export the milled, brandable product rather than the raw grain.

Thailand charges the greater of 20 per cent or 1.37 baht per kilogram with no relief, which puts a commodity oat out of contention there.

### 6. Beef striploin and ribeye

Vietnam charges 14 per cent falling to free. Thailand charges 50 per cent with nothing available, which is a closed door at any commodity price.

Beef carries the heaviest establishment requirements on this list, and that is the gate rather than the tariff.

### 7. Bulk maple syrup

Vietnam charges 10 per cent falling to free, Thailand 20 per cent with no relief. Sold as an ingredient to bakery, dairy and beverage manufacturers rather than as a gift item, it is a volume business with a light regulatory load, because the finished consumer product belongs to your customer.

The ones that are open, where the work is elsewhere

### 8. Whey protein concentrate

Free into Vietnam on both columns, free into the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, 5 per cent into Thailand and Indonesia. There is no preference to win because there is almost no duty to remove.

That is not a reason to skip it. It means the tariff conversation is over before it starts and the account is decided entirely on specification, functional performance and supply reliability, which is a good place to compete if your quality is real.

### 9. Lactose

Free into Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. 1 per cent into the Philippines, 5 per cent into Indonesia. The same story: an open border and a technical sale.

### 10. Yellow peas and split yellow peas

Free into Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, 5 per cent into Thailand, 3 per cent into the Philippines. Both as a food ingredient and as the input behind pea protein, this is a large and undramatic opportunity where the differentiator is processing consistency: split percentage, colour, dust and fines are functions of your line rather than of the crop.

### 11. Red split and green whole lentils

Free into Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, 5 per cent into Thailand, 3 per cent into the Philippines. An established trade rather than a new one, which means the buyers exist and the competition is real. Won on specification and reliability.

The one that is interesting for the opposite reason

### 12. Icewine

Vietnam charges 50 per cent at the general rate and 15 per cent under CPTPP. Indonesia charges 90 per cent.

We include it because it is the clearest illustration on this list of a preference that reduces without eliminating. Fifteen per cent is a large improvement on fifty and it is still fifteen per cent, which has to be carried in the price. And Indonesia at 90 per cent is a number to plan around rather than through.

It is a premium, low-volume, high-attention product and the economics only work at a genuinely premium position. Read it as an illustration of how to read a schedule as much as a recommendation.

What the list actually shows

Three patterns are worth more than any individual line.

The first is that the strongest Canadian positions in this region are concentrated in Vietnam, and specifically in the lines where the general rate is high. Shellfish at 27 per cent, berries at 30, oats at 15, beef at 14, maple at 10. In each case CPTPP removes it. That is a coherent commercial strategy rather than a coincidence, and it is available now rather than pending.

The second is that Thailand is where Canadian product is structurally disadvantaged across this whole list: 50 per cent on beef, 30 per cent or a specific duty on berries, 20 per cent on shellfish and maple, with no agreement in force to reduce any of it. That does not make Thailand impossible, and it does mean Thailand should not be a first market and should never be entered on price.

The third is that Malaysia and Singapore are open at the border on essentially everything here, which sounds like good news and is really a warning. Where the tariff is nothing for you it is nothing for everyone, and you compete on documentation, specification and reliability against the whole world. Those markets reward the exporter who is well organised rather than the one who is well located.

How to use a list like this

A shortlist is a starting point for a conversation, not a plan, and there are three ways to misread one.

The first is to treat the largest gap as the best opportunity. The 27 and 30 point Vietnamese lines are the most striking numbers here and they are only worth what your volume through that market is. A five point saving on a line you ship in quantity beats a thirty point saving on a line you ship twice a year, and the second is often easier to get excited about.

The second is to plan on a preference without planning on the documentation that delivers it. Every preferential figure above is claimed at import, by or on behalf of your buyer, on origin documentation that originates with you. The agreement being in force is a precondition rather than an outcome. Producers who model the preferential rate and then supply an incomplete origin declaration have modelled a price they will not get.

The third is to read a duty position as a market assessment. Nothing here says whether a buyer exists at your price, whether your plant can be certified for a destination, or whether a category has room. Those are the questions that actually decide an entry, and a favourable tariff line simply means they are worth asking.

What is not on this list, and why

Products where the door is shut. Pork into Thailand is the clearest case: no commercial term fixes a category that lacks market access, and a tariff rate on a line you cannot ship is a number with no meaning.

Products where we have not verified the position. We publish the applied and preferential rate per product and per market with the source and the date. Where a cell reads available on request, that line is unverified and the entry stays off this list. We will not put a plausible figure on a shortlist to make it longer.

And finished consumer products generally, which are their own registration, labelling and halal projects rather than a tariff question. Several of the ingredients above become one the moment you put them in a retail pack.

Before you act on any of it

Two things sit above every line here.

Your classification is yours, not your category's. A frozen whole berry, a puree, a juice concentrate and a spray-dried powder are four subheadings with four rates. Getting this wrong produces a business case that is wrong in the first cell.

And in Malaysia and Indonesia the halal certifier decision governs more than the certificate. Each authority publishes its own list of recognised foreign bodies, the lists do not agree, and between them they name only four Canadian certifiers, of which exactly one is recognised by both. That choice is made once, expensively, and it decides which of the markets above you can actually serve.

Send us the product and we will tell you what it classifies as, what it costs at each of these six borders, and whether the case we have sketched here holds for your particular line.