Farm-Scape, Episode 1575

A newly modernized naming structure for pork cuts sold at retail in Canada is expected to improve the product's profile and increase sales.

Nomenclature identifies the names retailers must use when labeling meat cuts and products. A new pork nomenclature, developed by a committee representing industry, government and consumer groups, was approved by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency last month and will become mandatory January 1, 2005.

Ontario Pork Director of Consumer Marketing Jim Vidoczy says the intent was to bring pork cut names in line with other meats and make them more understandable.

"There are three key changes really. We are now more anatomically aligned with the other commodities.

Pork shoulder butt, and we weren't sure that people liked buying the butt of anything, has now been changed to shoulder blade which is consistent with beef and veal for instance.

We are also now allowed to use ribeye for that portion of the loin and the tenderloin end portion of the loin is now simply called sirloin.

These are simpler to understand for consumers because they have an actual parallel with other purchases they're currently making from the meat counter.

Image wise, what we had been saying by law was pork loin tenderloin end chop. That's now pork sirloin chop.

It's a whole lot easier to understand and it does elevate the cut in the minds of consumers. Sirloin is a good cut and anatomically a pork sirloin is identical to a beef, veal or lamb sirloin."

Vidoczy says recent changes to the beef nomenclature incorporate cooking instructions into the cut name but the pork industry did not follow that model.

He says pork is very versatile and any cut can be cooked in any number of ways.

He says cooking pork is not at issue, other than people tending to over cook it.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.