Competitiveness of Canadian Pork In Japan Strengthens

The Chair of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board says the quality of Canadian pork combined with improved market access gives it an edge in the Japanese market.

In observance of signing of the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership and to further strengthen trade relations a delegation representing the Canadian pork sector travelled last week to Japan.

Casey Smit, the Chair of the Saskatchewan Pork Development Board, says Japan continues to be a key export market for Canadian pork producers for a couple of different reasons.

Saskatchewan Pork Development Board

First there's only a handful of countries that can export chilled pork to Japan and some other Asian countries such as Korea and China.

The European countries really are just too far away to be able to sell chilled pork over there and that is one of the fastest growing segments in the Japanese market so that's a tremendous advantage for Canada and we've made tremendous gains over the past few years and we're actually now posed to overtake the U.S. in chilled exports to Japan hopefully in the not too distant future.

In fact some of the latest came out that the U.S. right now is at about 52 percent and Canada is at about 45 percent of chilled pork exports into Japan and that's steadily growing for Canada so that bodes well.

The second reason is that Canada has an excellent reputation when  it comes to food safety and quality.

The Verified Canadian Pork label that appears on Canadian pork products, and we were able to see, really highlights the quality assurance programs that Canada has in place and we found out again just how important it is to the Japanese consumer in building confidence in our products.

Certainly the domestic product is viewed as the premier product in Japan and next to that is the Canadian products, ahead of the U.S. products.

We sit in a very good position and that Verified Canadian Pork label really is a testament to that.

Smit says Canadian pork already has an edge in Japan over its main competitor, the United States, from a quality perspective and, with the signing of the CPTPP, that position has been strengthened.