By Bruce Cochrane.
The Vice President Technical Programs and Marketing Services, with Canada Pork International, says U.S. pork industry plans to introduce a quality based grading system for pork accelerates the need for a Canadian quality based grading system.
Canada Pork International, in partnership with Swine Innovation Porc, has been working on a quality based grading system for pork which would focus on meat color, texture and marbling.
In October the U.S. pork industry announced plans to create a pork grading system based on meat color, texture and marbling, which would mirror the grading system used for U.S. beef and include prime, choice and select.
Michael Young, the Vice President Technical Programs and Marketing Services, with Canada Pork International, says quality based grading will offer a more consistent eating experience.
Clip-Michael Young-Canada Pork International:
Any time a competitor creates a tool that will allow them to quantify quality, it's of course a concern to us.
Right now our meat packers have their own selection systems.
It's not like they haven't been grading because they have been.
The difference is they have their own selection systems for different markets and it's not standardized.
What a national grading system will do is it will provide a standardized set of measurements and metrics so that, if we say the marbling score is four and better, then anybody who makes that claim, that marbling score will be four and better.
That's really the consistency we're looking for.
The fact that the Americans are developing their system first, we knew it would come sooner or later.
The system they are proposing fits well with the proposed system we were proposing.
I think the Canadian system we are talking about would give us much more utility to go where they are going but then also allow a mechanism to go beyond, if our members or customers choose to.
Young believes the U.S. taking a leadership role and moving forward with quality based pork grading will provide incentive to move Canada along a little quicker.
Source: Farmscape