Bernardin vs Mason vs Kerr Jars in Canada: Which to Buy

If you walk into Canadian Tire to buy canning jars and stare at the shelves wondering whether Bernardin and Mason and Ball and Kerr are different things, this is your answer.

Quick answer: Buy Bernardin jars in Canadian metric sizes (125 mL, 250 mL, 500 mL, 1 L). Every Canadian tested recipe specifies these. Ball, Mason, and Kerr jars work identically but use American imperial sizes that don’t match Canadian recipes cleanly.

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The corporate truth (briefly)

Bernardin, Ball, Kerr, and the modern “Golden Harvest” Mason brand are all owned by Newell Brands. The glass moulds for the jars come from a handful of factories in Ohio, Texas, and Indiana. Lids are made on the same lines.

What’s different is:

• Branding and sizing. Bernardin is the Canadian brand; jars are labelled in Canadian metric (mL/L). Ball and Mason and Kerr are American brands; jars are labelled in US imperial (half-pint, pint, quart).
• Distribution. Bernardin dominates Canadian retail (Canadian Tire, Walmart Canada, Loblaws, Bernardin retailers). Ball/Mason dominate US retail. You’ll find both in Canada, especially online.
• Tested recipe books. The Bernardin Complete Book of Home Preserving gives volumes in mL/L; the Ball Blue Book gives volumes in cups/pints. Same recipes, different units.

Functionally — same glass, same threads, same SNAP lid system, same processing times.

What “Bernardin” means in Canadian recipes

When a Canadian recipe says “7 × 500 mL Bernardin jars,” it means:

• 7 jars total
• Each jar is 500 mL nominal volume (actual brim-full ~515 mL)
• Standard Canadian regular-mouth thread (58 mm opening)
• A two-piece SNAP lid (flat metal sealing disc + screw band)

The Bernardin SNAP lid is the proprietary trade name in Canada; in the US it’s the “Ball Lid” or “Mason lid.” Same lid. Different sticker.

The lids are interchangeable. A Ball regular-mouth lid fits a Bernardin regular-mouth jar perfectly, and vice versa. Don’t overthink it.

Canadian Bernardin sizes — what you’ll actually buy

Regular-mouth (58 mm opening)

The default. These are the jars you buy first.

• 125 mL (4 fl oz) — quarter-pint. Jelly, hot sauce, baby food.
• 250 mL (8 fl oz) — half-pint. The Canadian jam jar.
• 500 mL (16 fl oz) — pint. The single most-used size: pickles, jam, salsa, applesauce.
• 1 L (32 fl oz) — quart. Tomatoes, fruit, pickles, salsa, broth.

Wide-mouth (83 mm opening)

Same jar shape; bigger opening. Easier to fill with chunky foods, easier to scoop from after opening.

• 250 mL wide-mouth — half-pint. Peach halves, apple butter.
• 500 mL wide-mouth — pint. Fermented foods, dehydrated storage, soups.
• 1 L wide-mouth — quart. Whole peaches, fermented sauerkraut, large jar contents.

Wide-mouth and regular-mouth use DIFFERENT lids. Don’t mix them. The wide-mouth vs regular-mouth comparison walks through which to buy for which use case.

Decorative / “elite” jars

Bernardin sometimes sells “decorative” jars (quilted, hexagonal, embossed). They work identically to plain jars but cost more. Skip unless you specifically want them for gifts.

US sizing — what to know if buying Ball or Mason

If you buy Ball or Mason or Kerr jars in Canada (Amazon.ca sometimes stocks them, often imported by specialty retailers):

US name	US volume	Approximate Canadian equivalent
Half-pint	8 fl oz	240 mL (close to 250 mL but slightly smaller)
Pint	16 fl oz	473 mL (close to 500 mL but smaller)
Quart	32 fl oz	946 mL (close to 1 L but smaller)

The volume difference is small (~5%) — not enough to fail a recipe — but it means a “5 quart” Ball jar batch will leave headspace where a “5 × 1 L Bernardin” batch fits exactly. Annoying, not unsafe.

Kerr jars — the heritage option

Kerr is the same parent company as Bernardin. In the US, Kerr is mostly Ball-with-different-branding. In Canada, you’ll mostly see Kerr as:

• Vintage diamond-pattern jars at antique stores ($5-15 each) — collectible. Use them for canning if rims and threads are intact.
• Modern Kerr branded jars at Amazon.ca occasionally — functionally identical to Bernardin.

Vintage Kerr “self-seal” lids (the old red-rubber-ring system) are not compatible with modern SNAP lids. If a heritage Kerr jar has an unusual rim shape or non-standard threading, use it for dry storage, not canning.

SNAP lids — never reuse

Whatever jar brand you buy, the SNAP lid is single-use for canning. Bernardin’s SNAP system is designed for one heat-seal cycle; reusing them risks failed seals and spoiled food.

Full rules in our SNAP lid reuse article. The short version: bands can be reused indefinitely; flat sealing discs are one-time-only.

Buy fresh SNAP lid boxes (regular-mouth or wide-mouth as needed) every canning season.

How many jars to buy

The standard Bernardin recipe is sized to a 7-jar batch — the capacity of a 21-quart water-bath canner or a Presto/All American pressure canner. Buy in multiples of 7 or 12.

Starter inventory:

• 12 × 250 mL regular-mouth — jam, jelly
• 24 × 500 mL regular-mouth — most everything
• 12 × 1 L regular-mouth — tomatoes, fruit, pickles
• 12 × 500 mL wide-mouth — once you start fermenting
• 24 × SNAP lid boxes in both regular-mouth and wide-mouth as needed

Budget: ~$120 CAD for the starter set, jars and lids.

What about reusing pasta-sauce jars from the grocery store?

No. Italian and US pasta-sauce jars (Classico, Mutti, Bertolli) sometimes have the same approximate dimensions as Mason jars and the lid threading sometimes matches. They are not tested for home canning and Bernardin/Health Canada do not endorse them.

The issues:

• Glass thickness is different — pasta-sauce jars are thinner, more prone to thermal-shock cracking during processing
• Lid sealing geometry is different — the rim is shaped for a one-time factory seal, not the SNAP lid’s vacuum pull
• No tempering for repeated heating — pasta-sauce jars are made for one fill cycle, not 30 years of canning use

Reuse them for dry-storage in the pantry (lentils, rice). Don’t use them in a canner.

Where to buy in Canada

• Canadian Tire — full Bernardin lineup, regular-mouth and wide-mouth. The default Canadian retail source.
• Walmart Canada — Bernardin in most stores, sometimes Ball. Often cheapest on basic 500 mL packs.
• Bernardin retailers — independent kitchen and farm-supply stores; same prices as CT, sometimes wider range
• Amazon.ca — full Bernardin range, occasionally Ball/Mason imported. Convenient for wide-mouth packs that CT doesn’t always stock.
• Costco — bulk packs of 12-24 Bernardin 500 mL jars at the best per-unit price during summer

Buy in late spring (April-May). Jar stock dwindles by August and prices firm up. Boxing Week clearance (late December) sometimes drops 15-20% off Bernardin starter kits.

The decision (it’s not complicated)

Get Bernardin if: you’re in Canada, you follow Canadian tested recipes, you want the easiest match between recipe and equipment. This is 99% of the answer.

Get Ball/Mason if: you’re following an American recipe book and want unit consistency. Functionally identical equipment, US imperial sizing.

Get vintage Kerr if: you like the diamond-pattern aesthetic and the jars are physically sound. Functionally identical to modern Bernardin.

Next steps

• SNAP lids reuse rules — fresh lids every batch
• Best water-bath canner — the pot your jars go into
• Jar didn’t seal — what to do when it goes wrong
• Best pressure canner — required for low-acid foods
• Water-bath canning pillar — the broader method