Canada resumes receiving pork from Smithfield Foods

Mar 17, 2025
By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content, Farms.com

The temporary suspension was related to offal shipments

Canada is once again accepting pork shipments from Smithfield Foods’ processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C.

Canada suspended imports last week “following an issue with a limited number of certain offal shipments,” Smithfield said in a March 14 statement. “We are grateful to the USDA and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) for a quick resolution of this matter.”

Neither the USDA or CFIA provided any clarification online about what actually caused the suspension.

But the USDA identified that under Canadian policy, “three noncompliance issues within six months” results in a suspension, Reuters reported.

Smithfield’s facility in North Carolina is the world’s largest processing plant.

The plant has the capacity to process about 32,000 hogs each day.

The CFIA also has a new minister responsible for its work.

As the newly appointed minister of health, Kamal Khera assumes responsibility for the CFIA.

She served as the parliamentary secretary to the minister of health from 2015 to 2017.

From 2021 to 2023 the MP for Brampton West was the minister of seniors, and from 2023 to 2025 was the minister of diversity, inclusion and persons with disabilities.

Video: What Really Drives Meat Quality in Pork? - Dr. Yan Huang

In this episode of The Swine it Podcast Show Canada, Dr. Yan Huang from University of Arkansas explores how genetics, nutrition, and stress management shape pork quality. He explains how molecular pathways influence fat deposition, muscle growth, and meat flavor while balancing production efficiency. Listen now on all major platforms!

"The most important driver of pork quality. Feed plays a very important role in the meat quality."

Meet the guest: Dr. Yan Huang / yan-huang-77829421 is an Associate Professor in Nutritional Skeletal Muscle Biology at the University of Arkansas. With academic experience across China, South Korea, and the United States, his work focuses on the genetic and molecular regulation of muscle growth and fat deposition in swine. His research connects genetics, nutrition, and pork quality to improve production efficiency and consumer satisfaction.