The executive director of Canada Pork International says that the key to maximising returns for Canadian pork products in the international market is the ability to differentiate their own products from their competitors.

Canada Pork International is the export market development agency of the Canadian pork industry and its mandate is to gain and maintain access to foreign markets, provide market intelligence and market information to members and potential foreign buyers and coordinate generic promotion of Canadian pork abroad.

The executive director of Canada Pork International, Jacques Pomerleau, said during the Manitoba Pork Council's annual general meeting that the Canadian industry needs to demonstrate that its product is of high quality and is focusing on such concerns as food safety, animal care and a few other issues in order to maintain its position worldwide.

Pomerleau said, "it is very important to differentiate. Otherwise you would remain as a commodity trade and therefore everything is based on prices so, if you want to increase your return, you need to differentiate and demonstrate to your potential customers and buyers that your product is superior and of better quality. In order to differentiate then we have to benchmark ourselves to find out where we fare exactly against the competitors."