Manitoba Pork expects pilot testing and final revisions to Canadian Pork Excellence to be completed in time for the first official validations by January of next year.
Pilot testing of the Canadian Pork Council’s new on farm food safety and animal care assurance program began early this month on 80 plus farms across Canada.
Mark Fynn, the Manager of Quality Assurance and Animal Care Programs with Manitoba Pork, told those attending Manitoba Pork’s 2017 District Advisors Winter Meeting yesterday, Canadian Pork Excellence amalgamates the food safety assurance, animal care assurance and pig traceability programs.
To deal with food safety we have to understand that there’s new expectations from our global market place. There’s a big push globally to really standardize how food safety certification programs are handled, to look at it under one standard and so we developed this program with those things in mind so that we could assure our global markets and our domestic markets that we’re meeting a high global standard and provide that continuous food safety assurance that Canadian pork has always provided.
For the animal care assurance program we’ve incorporated all the requirements that were laid out in the 2014 Pig Code of Practice. We see that as a document that really strikes a balance on what the animal care expectations should be and develop that with the group that was around the Code of Practice table. We see that as a very important step to maintain public trust and ensure that all pigs across the country that are on our assurance programs are actually meeting a standard that the Canadian public can be happy about.
~ Mark Fynn-Manitoba Pork
Fynn says the goal is finish the pilot testing by May, complete revisions to the program this summer and distribute finalized program materials to producers this fall, in time for the first official validations under the revised program in January.
