The Executive Director of the Canadian Pork Council says the influence Japanese consumers have had on the quality of Canadian pork has benefited the Canadian pork industry in markets around the world, including Canada.
As part of a seminar hosted by Canada Pork International at the Canadian Embassy In Tokyo earlier this month Japanese meat trade and government representatives were introduced to the Canadian Pork Excellence Program, the Canadian Pork Industry’s new food quality and animal care assurance program.
John Ross, the Executive Director of the Canadian Pork Council, observes, in terms of value, Japan is Canada’s number two export market, second only to the United States.
It’s a market that’s there every week of the year. They take some extraordinarily high value product from Canada and in that sense it’s an extraordinarily important market in terms of value of the product that they bring to Canada, a market that’s changed over the years. Canada Pork International actually celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary and the first market it went into 25 years ago was Japan. Over the progress of time and what we’ve learned in the Japanese market over all those years, we now have a market that’s approaching a billion dollars.
We have a market that takes largely fresh chilled pork from Canada. It’s a market that’s encouraged us to develop higher quality pork, higher quality animals. It’s a market where we’ve seen adjustments in packing plants that are made specifically to handle the Japanese market.
We’ve seen genetics that have shifted to handle Japan. It’s a market that not only has brought tremendous value back to Canada, but also a market that has encouraged us to produce better and as a result of that we’ve been able to capitalize in markets around the world, not only Japan but even here at home in Canada. ~ John Ross, Canadian Pork Council
Ross says there is a high level of interest among Japanese meat buyers in how we verify all of the thing we do in Canada to ensure the quality of the hogs that go into processing and that high quality is certainly appreciated.
