Farm-Scape, Episode 1574

New federal legislation has cleared the way for the Canadian pork industry to introduce new names to identify several common pork cuts sold through retail outlets across Canada.

Canadian food and drug regulations and the consumer packaging and labeling act require all foods to be identified on labels by their common names.

The new nomenclature protocols for pork cuts, developed by a committee representing industry, government and consumer groups, replaces the naming structure in place since 1977.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Food Program Officer John Stanger says the changes are intended to reflect modern retail labeling requirements.

"What it means for consumers is they should have an increased ability to see uniform terms on the same cut, what ever store they're in and what ever province they're working in. The changes will not require any changes to cutting methods.

Just by way of comment, I don't think the changes will be a major issue for either consumers or industry.

I think it's kind of a win win proposition for both consumers and industry. While the fundamental mandatory common names that are required have not changed very much, there's only a few changes actually, the main benefit is the common names for the hundreds of products that are normally offered for sale have been standardized bilingually."

The new nomenclature structure was announced last week and the changes are beginning now.

Stanger says industry is working to complete a transition to the full use of these new terms by January 1, 2005.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.