What if you could walk into your neighborhood grocery store, pick up a package of pork chops and know exactly what that pig was fed, where it slept and how it was processed?
That day is coming, according to the head of an agricultural think tank.
Larry Martin, chief executive officer of the George Morris Centre based in Guelph, Ont., was speaking at the third annual Prairie Swine Centre Director’s Lecture in Saskatoon Oct. 13.
He said consumers concerned about issues like animal welfare, food safety and genetically modified food want products tailored to meet their needs. He described this segmentation as a big opportunity for the industry.
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“Perception is reality, folks,” he said. “We’re going to have to start doing some identity preservation.”
Martin said customers want to trace their product from start to finish, which could create the need for supply chains or co-operative alliances. By joining forces, producers and processors could keep track of individual pigs by scheduling certain types of pork to go through the processing plants at a certain time.
“That way, I can go into the store and I can trace back which farmer made that piece of pork.”
Martin talked about a supermarket chain in Britain that decided to trace its pork. By taking charge of the whole operation from the farm to the packing plant, it was able to sell its “green pork” to environmentally conscious customers who wanted pork from animals that had been organically fed and that had spent time outdoors.
“They could truthfully say they had traced that product from beginning to end,” Martin said.
The Canadian Cattle Identification Agency is already working to establish a system to trace animals in the beef and dairy industries. By Dec. 31, 2000, cattle will have to be eartagged before leaving their original herd in case of a disease outbreak or human health problem.
Segmentation in the pork industry would also create a need for a different system to determine pork prices, said Martin.
“If there’s no single hog, there shouldn’t be a single price.”
He admitted segmentation in the Canadian market is miniscule right now, but the potential is there and it is an opportunity that should be seized.
