London processors of Billy Bee say patriotic Canadians can confidently place the product on their honey-do list.

In a campaign reminiscent of the recent French’s versus Heinz ketchup debate, a Manitoba beekeeper started a change.org petition to encourage London-based McCormick Canada to use more Canadian honey in its iconic Billy Bee brand.

More than 71,000 people, in one week, have signed the petition that claims McCormick “(has) all but stopped buying Canadian honey.”

The snag: it’s not true.

“Eight-five per cent of all of our honey is sourced from Canada and that’s been consistent. Nothing has changed for either McCormick or Billy Bee,” said Andrew Foust, vice-president in charge of marketing for McCormick Canada.

The product is also packaged in Canada, at the London spice-making facility that employs 600 people.

Foust said the formulation has been the same for 60 years: about 15% of the honey comes from Argentina for taste reasons.

Most of Billy Bee’s honey comes from Alberta and Saskatchewan, where more than half of all Canada’s honey originates.

“We believe we are the largest buyer of Canadian honey” in the country, Foust said, and the company takes a lot of pride in that.

One exception is the brand’s organic honey, which comes from Brazil (and is packaged here) because there’s not enough produced in Canada to ensure a consistent domestic supply.

And while the change.org petition has attracted a lot of attention — including its introduction ‘Foreign honey bankrupting Canadian beekeepers!’ — its calls for a boycott could be a case of misplaced nationalism.

Honey exports in 2014 were valued at $51 million, while we imported $32 million worth of honey, says an analysis by the Canadian Honey Council, the national organization of beekeepers.

“To me, their story doesn’t add up,” said Allan Campbell, the Dauphin beekeeper who started the petition. He said he doesn’t know of a beekeeper who has sold honey to Billy Bee in months.

He said he is definitely not asking consumers to boycott McCormick products. “I’m asking (McCormick) to support Canadian beekeepers and use only Canadian honey.”

But there’s also the sticky issue of how to identify Canadian products. The label “Canada Number One grade” means it meets Canada’s top food-grade standards and not that the product has only Canadian content, said Michael J. Armstrong, Brock University Associate Professor of Operations Management.

He said food labels can be confusing: “packaged in Canada” means it has non-domestic content but was packaged here; “Product of Canada” means the ingredients and processing are domestic; and “Made in Canada” means it has 100% Canadian content.

Earlier this year, a social-media campaign backed French’s ketchup because it contains Ontario-grown tomatoes. But Heinz continues to source many tomato products and processing at the Leamington Highbury Canco facility where French’s ketchup is made.

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Canadian . . . or not?

If you’re a radio station, ‘Canadian content’ means 35% of the commercial music broadcast each week is Canadian. (For the CBC, the minimum Canadian-music percentage is 50%.)

If you drink ‘Blended in Canada wine,’ you could be drinking as much as 60% imported grape.

French’s ketchup is made from Ontario-grown tomatoes, exported to Ohio for packaging; and while Heinz no longer sources its ketchup in Canada, the Canadian-owned Highbury Canco plant in Leamington still processes dozens of Heinz products including tomato juice and tomato-based pasta sauce.

Tim Horton’s, of necessity, imports its coffee beans from Central and South America but the company roasts, grinds, blends, packages it all in Ancaster.