By Katherine Svenkeson

Nipawin to Ship Ice Honey to Beijing

Jan 8, 2016 | 6:00 AM

Nipawin’s iconic sweetness could soon be getting some shelf space in China.

One of Nipawin’s biggest exports, ice honey, is being shipped off across the globe to China, available in their grocery stores for purchase.

Hanfood International Trading Company Group is taking steps to export domestically made Nipawin ice honey overseas to Beijing where Canada’s clean food industry standards are a raging trend.

The pollution and food standards in China cause huge health problems, which is why the country is looking to buy their food elsewhere, like Canada where our food standards are one of the best in the world.  

Hanfood’s Executive Vice President Jack Upshall said that it’s Canada’s food standards that have China wanting to buy more Canadian food products.

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“The Nipawin area in particular, there’s no industry there and so anything that’s grown or developed there is considered pollution free and it’s Canadian, so we have very high standards here,” he said.

Nipawin’s ice honey exports about five million pounds of it annually already, before the export overseas. 10 percent of Canada’s domestically produced products come from the Nipawin area including ice honey, Saskatoon berries and wild rice.

Vice President Upshall said that they will be keeping the ice honey business in the hands of small business owners or producers.

“It cannot be industrialized. We feel very strongly about this. It must come from these producers at the local level,” he said.

If the export of ice honey goes well they hope to start export Saskatoon berries and wild rice as well over seas to China through Canada’s CP Rails after the appropriate railway updates have been made. However, there won’t be news about when Canada’s CP Railways will be ready for that kind of shipment till February.

“This is a new market for Saskatchewan. It can be very beneficial not only to the province but to producers in industries like berries, honey and wild rice,” said Upshall.

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On Twitter:  @ksvenkeson