WINNIPEG, Manitoba – The Canadian Pork Council said Tuesday that exports of fresh, chilled and frozen U.S. pork have been increasing and narrowing the gap between Canadian exports and U.S. imports.

"The amount of US pork being imported into Canada has been steadily rising while shipments of Canadian pork into the US has been slowly declining," Martin Rice, an executive director with the Canadian Pork Council, said.

The decline in Canadian pork products to the U.S. was partly linked to the decline in pork processing in Canada, as well as to Canadian producers who are finding it more profitable to ship their feeder pigs to the US to farrow and finish them, Rice reportedly said.

Rice was unsure whether the listeria outbreak experienced by Maple Leaf Foods Inc., had caused a consumer backlash against those pork products and in turn caused a shift to U.S. products at the retail sector.

During calendar year 2007, Canadian imports of U.S. pork was very close to 200,000 metric tons. Canadian pork product exports to the U.S. during 2007, meanwhile, was 353,000 tons, Rice said.

Source: Resource News International