Manitoba Hog Grading Inc. (MHGI) represents the interests of hog producers and processors in Manitoba. Its mission is to provide a carcass grading service that is effective and cost-efficient and to deliver this service for hog producers and pork processors in Manitoba.
In 1997 the four large, federally inspected processors and Manitoba Pork founded MHGI as a grading service when Agriculture Canada decided to relinquish its grading program. They chose their board of directors from the members, with equal representation from producers and processors. The manager originally hired grading staff and oversaw training, but in 2000 grading staff became plant employees, allowing the manager to perform grader training and audits.
MHGI’s board and staff follow a set of procedures and standards to ensure fair treatment of both producer and processor. It is also the grading company’s responsibility to review procedures and standards from time to time to see if they are adequate or if they have to change to reflect the needs of the sector.
Jason Care Manager/Auditor, Manitoba Hog Grading said they started the MHGI way back in the day to make sure that the plant is getting good quality hogs, that they’re not getting super fat hogs with small loins. The payment process, it’s another way of making sure the producers are getting paid fairly for the product that they’re bringing to the table. So that’s why they did that.
“We use probes to measure the hog between the third and fourth rib and it comes out four centimetres from the spine, and the outside is seven centimetres from the spine,” he said. “It goes through the loin, perfectly perpendicular through the loin, and it does a measure of the actual loin and the back fat. Then it does a massive calculation and spits out our yield percentage.”
The plants use the yield percentage with the weight of the hog.
“Where the hog falls in the line at the red tattoo. When that carcass hits the scale, it includes the leaf lard, the head, kidneys, hocks, basically all the innards. It’s eviscerated and it hits the scale, and that’s the weight the packing plant uses on the grid. They take the yield percentage and right after the scale is where the graders actually grade it. So they link the weight with the yield percentage, the packer has a grid and that’s how they pay the producer for the hog.”
In 14 years of doing this work, Manitoba’s average for yield was 58.9 per cent; today it is 60.43 per cent.
“I’ve seen, in that period of 14 years, the change in the genetics that we have in the province. In judging hog carcass shows in Saskatchewan and Manitoba I look at the loins from there versus the loins that I get here, and when I did the PLE, the Prairie Livestock Expo in 2018, the loins, which were huge, were heavily marbled. I find that the genetics in our province have a lot more marbling even compared to in Ontario,” said Care.
Apparently, that is what the consumer wants.
“That’s the growing trend. Right? The plants would love to get more marbling for the foodservice industry, even cooking, because having more of that marbling; it’s similar to beef, where that meat is much more tender when you cook it. That fat will leak out, drip out, but the meat stays juicier. So that’s an objective,” he said. “You can always go in and look at your chops when they cut them and everything like that, but the standard that we see in the markets, the retails or, where they’re in the restaurants, it’s excellent. I know the Canadian Pork Council wants to implement pork grading similar to how the beef industry grades beef. That’s in progress right now, looking at different venues and how to rate it and to get that standard labelling.”
Care puts on 50,000 kilometres a year going to do audits every week.
“But it’s just interesting to see the direction of the pork industry and the market, and the way it’s going, to get more of the pork on the table as, per se. As you said, there’s beef and there’s pork. And a lot of people, unfortunately, that old mentality, we’re talking 20 years ago, where, you know, overcooked pork. And you have to remember it’s red meat and a lot of people just are kind of scared. Well, I can’t have a little bit of pink in the pork, but you can, and it’s actually so much juicier,” he said. “In the ’80s it was very lean; the pork was tough and dry.”
He said the protein has changed. The way they process it now is a lot different compared to what they used to do a long time ago.
“So that’s another factor too because now we’re getting a much better quality protein and texture,” said Care. “And again, that’s all due to science and the research that the pork industry keeps developing and working on, and same with Manitoba Pork, to find out what will make things better, what will make things safer, all those things wrapped into one.” •
— By Harry Siemens