Hog processors in Canada are dashing to top up Japanese orders for chilled pork after Taiwan’s hog industry crashed following an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease.
Japan, the world’s largest pork importer, is continuing its ban on Taiwanese pork issued after the March 21 outbreak.
Jim Morris, head of Canada’s hog promotion group Canada Pork International, said meat packers here who supply chilled pork are scrambling to meet the “almost insatiable demand” coming out of Japan.
Overall, Canadian chilled pork exports to Japan have more than doubled, Morris estimates.
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Bob Telford, general manager of Fletcher’s in Red Deer, Alta., said he was taking calls from Japanese buyers wanting to increase their chilled pork shipments just days after the ban was announced.
“When they heard, they bought chilled pork almost everywhere they could get it,” Telford said. Japan’s 24 percent tariff on frozen pork has not been lifted.
Jump in shipments
Fletcher’s is shipping five times more chilled pork to Japan now, Telford said. Shipments of one container a week, or about 15 tonnes of pork, have jumped to one a day.
“Right now, they’re long on chilled pork in Japan but in the long term, they will be short.”
A hog cholera epidemic in the Netherlands has also limited the world’s pork supply, he said.
Fletcher’s isn’t processing more hogs, he said. Rather, shipments that were going to the United States are now destined for Japan. Total sales have remained steady throughout the shift, he said.
Ray Price, president of Trochu Meat Processors in Alberta, said the company’s exports to Japan have doubled since March. But he said that would have happened regardless of the ban.
“This certainly pushed them to find alternatives sooner,” he said, estimating the ban accelerated the process by about six months.
The company expanded a year ago to meet the growing Asian market for specialized pork products. Since then, exports to Japan have been growing each month at a steady rate.
“We find out what the customer needs and produce it for them. They have very limited suppliers who are willing to do that.”
Price received a call from two of Trochu’s Japanese customers the day after the Taiwan pork import ban was issued.
“It doubled our volume in a week,” Price said. That’s a dramatic jump for a relatively small company, he added.
“This is somebody’s misfortune, but in Canada, it is good for producers, good for processors and good for the industry.”
Even before the hoof-and-mouth outbreak, Taiwan’s hog industry was struggling with environmental problems, Price said, adding he doesn’t think Japan’s interest in North American pork will be short-lived.
“I think if we do a good job as an industry it will be difficult for Taiwan to get back into it.”
Morris predicts Canadian exports of frozen pork to Japan will increase 25 percent after July 1.That’s when the country’s 24 percent tariff on frozen pork should be lifted.
Total Canadian pork exports in 1996 hit a record 352,688 tonnes, up 14 percent in value at $1.105 billion and 3.3 percent more in tonnage, Morris said.
Canada held a 6.2 percent market share in Japan in 1996.
Some 20 to 30 percent of Canadian pork sales to Japan are chilled, vacuum-packed pork shipped by ocean vessels.
