WINNIPEG - China is rejecting imports from a Manitoba pork processing plant because its products contain a feed additive, but industry insiders believe the move is in response to a North American crackdown on Chinese goods.
Jeanette Jones, spokeswoman for Maple Leaf Foods Inc., said Monday pork shipments from the company's facility in Brandon, Man., to China have been suspended because the products contain ractopamine, which is used to increase lean meat in hogs.
The Brandon plant is the only Canadian operation affected, although Jones noted Chinese authorities have suspended imports from 10 plants in the U.S. She added three other Canadian facilities and 11 U.S. plants in the U.S. are under investigation.
"Industry certainly believes that this is a trade action that's being launched against not only the Canadian industry, but the U.S.,'' Jones said in a telephone interview from Toronto.
Canada approved the use of ractopamine for some types of hogs in early 2006, while the additive was cleared in the U.S. about seven years ago.
China has banned ractopamine since 2002. Jones said ractopamine detected in domestic or imported pork products is deemed not compliant. She also pointed out Chinese officials only raised the issue with the Canadian Embassy on Sept. 7.
"They've only recently begun enforcing their zero tolerance,'' she said.
Paul Hodgman, executive director of Alberta Pork, a group that represents 800 producers, said the crackdown could be China's way of sending a message to the U.S. and Canada.
"Certainly, China's really been under fire in North America for lead in toys ... this could well be part of that trade reaction to us becoming heavy on them,'' said Hodgman.
Since last spring's tainted pet food scare and more recently, a massive toy recall, both involving Chinese products, authorities in China have prominently announced their own rejections of imports, including U.S. orange pulp, dried apricots, raisins and health supplements.
Pork is the protein of choice in China.
Jones said China represents a "very small'' percentage of Maple Leaf's total export market -- less than half a per cent of the company's total sales.
