One Quebec Fast Food Chain Wants a Poutine Emoji to Be Created

Quebec-wide fast food chain Valentine has launched a petition for the creation of a poutine emoji.

The petition, which was first picked up by radio station CHOM (and now Global News) suggests that given the plethora of other food emojis, there’s room for poutine to be included.

“It’s 2019, how can there be a sweet potato emoji but no poutine one?!,” reads the petition description.

The petition currently has over 2,000 signatures, and is close to its goal of 2,500.

The company, based out of St-Hyacinthe and now with nearly 100 restaurants around the province, has clearly done its basic research. The petition notes that the restaurant’s representatives have submitted a formal request for a poutine emoji to the Unicode Consortium, the official body that approves new emoji.

But an application for a new emoji far from guarantees its approval: while somewhat regionally-specific foods such as bagels have been approved before, applicants are expected to demonstrate the frequency with which any new emoji might be used (presumably, emoji that would not be widely used would be less likely to be approved).

A few dozen emoji are approved by the Consortium each year — a representative from Ottawa-based company Shopify is one of the 12 voting members on the committee, so there’s hopefully one vote in there in support of poutine. However, the other members — from companies and governments in the United States, Europe, and Asia, would need convincing.

It’s unclear what the emoji might actually look like: if it were approved, it would be up to individual companies like Apple and Google to figure out a design for their respective platforms. Presumably, it would feature curds, and not grated cheese.

• Signez pour un emoji de poutine [Change.org]
• A Petition Was Started to Have a Poutine Emoji [CHOM]
• The Delicate Art of Creating New Emoji [WIRED]