When players in Canada’s billion dollar pork export business look west toward the setting sun, they squint and then see a market in which sales are booming and where more is never enough.
This week, a group of hog farmers is in Asia, making marketing contacts in an area that buys a quarter of a billion dollars worth of Canadian pork each year.
“We think there is great potential there,” Martin Rice, executive secretary of the Canadian Pork Council, said in an interview Feb. 13. “We will be letting them know about our quality assurance program.”
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He said Canadian farmers and representatives of pro-vincial marketing boards also will use the trip to become more familiar with products Asian buyers want.
Eleven producers and three staff are on the trip to South Korea and Japan. “It will be useful to bring a variety of producer leaders in contact with the peculiarities of those markets.”
In recent years, Asia has become the second most important sales area for Canada’s hog industry, which last year recorded its first $1 billion year.
More than 60 percent of that went to the United States.
Japan is the second largest market, taking $226 million worth of product by the end of November. Japan has become the world’s largest pork importer.
Meanwhile, Koreans have been developing a taste for Canadian pork.
Four years ago, Korea imported less than $1 million worth. Last year, imports of Canadian pork were worth more than $17 million as Korea became Canada’s fifth largest customer.
Large increase predicted
“We have about 30 percent of the Korean market now,” said Rice. “We expect their demand to triple over the next few years. We think we are well positioned to take a significant share of that growth.”
In Japan, sales have increased more than 50 percent during the past decade but Canadian product still occupies just six percent of the Japanese market.
Rice said that market share can be increased if Canada’s producers understand the market better, and if Japanese buyers can be assured about the safety and quality of the Canadian product.
