Farmscape for January 23, 2009   (Episode 3079)

Pork Marketing Canada reports its national "Choose Canadian" program is proving effective in helping raise the awareness of Canadian consumers of the benefits of choosing Canadian pork at the supermarket.

Pork Marketing Canada's Choose Canadian program is a voluntary national labelling initiative involving pork processors and retailers that identifies Canadian pork in the retail meat case.

The label which bears a Canadian flag and the words "Canadian Pork-Porc Canadien" is easily identifiable and is intended to differentiate pork produced in Canada from imported product.

Pork Marketing Canada manager Roy Kruse told those on hand yesterday for the 2009 Banff Pork Seminar market research and several studies have shown, while Canadian consumers want to buy Canadian products most were unaware that there was actually imported pork in the meat case.

Clip-Roy Kruse-Pork Marketing Canada
We've done two waves of market research.

We did a benchmark back in June of last year and we've done some mid-wave research that has shown us that now three in ten Canadians are aware of Canadian pork, which is a movement in the right direction.

We know that, from market researcher and several studies that have been done, that Canadians want to buy Canadian products and studies have shown us that they will wave that Canadian flag if it's clearly identified so they want to locally grown home-made products that from Canada.

We are moving the needle so to speak.

It'll be interesting to see when the campaign, at least the media part of it, concludes in the spring how much we've actually changed the perception in terms of Canadian pork to the consumer.

Kruse says the volume of imported product in grocery stores varies across the country.

He notes last year there was a lot of American product coming into southern Ontario and figures from the George Morris Centre indicate 20 percent of the pork Canadians will consume this year will come from another country.

He suggests, by buying Canadian and supporting local products it's definitely going to maintain jobs and keep people employed and keep the economy rolling.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council