The Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced this week that it's lifting restrictions on a specific set of US porcine products that were barred or required extra certification due to pseudorabies (Aujesky's Disease). The USDA declared the US free of the virus, and CFIA followed with a protocol change that affects a narrow but real slice of the import base: pet food manufacturers sourcing porcine blood plasma, fertilizer importers bringing in raw hog manure, pharmaceutical companies using porcine blood products, and specialty food processors clearing uncooked pork snouts or edible blood.
If you're in one of those categories, the release procedure at CBSA just got simpler. If you're not, this is a brief primer on how CFIA OGD requirements layer onto customs clearance and why these notices matter even when they don't touch your product mix.
What Was Restricted and Why
Pseudorabies is a viral disease in swine that doesn't affect humans but can devastate hog herds. Canada has been free of it for decades. The US had sporadic outbreaks, so CFIA maintained import controls on certain high-risk porcine materials that could carry the virus: uncooked edible pork snouts, uncooked edible porcine blood, raw inedible porcine by-products (organs, offal not for human consumption), untreated inedible porcine blood products (plasma, serum used in pharmaceuticals or feed additives), and raw porcine manure (used as fertilizer or in biogas).
Standard edible pork cuts, processed pet food, and cooked products were never restricted. The controls sat on raw, unprocessed materials that posed a transmission risk if the source herd was infected.
What Changes at the Clearance Desk
CFIA has updated its import reference document to remove the pseudorabies-specific certification requirements for US-origin shipments of the five product categories above. USDA will now resume issuing standard export health certificates for these goods, and CFIA will accept them at the border without additional attestations or testing.
Practically, this means your broker will file the CAD with the usual CFIA FIRMS code for the product, CBSA will flag it for OGD release, and CFIA will clear it on the strength of the USDA certificate. The certificate must be in your broker's possession before the OGD release can finalize. If it's missing or incomplete, the shipment holds until the exporter couriers a compliant original or CFIA grants a waiver (rare). Make sure your US supplier knows USDA certification is back in play for these products and builds the lead time into their export SOP.
For the five categories, HS classification typically falls under 0206 (edible offal of swine), 0504 (guts, bladders, and stomachs of animals other than fish), 3002 (blood fractions and immunological products), or 3101 (animal or vegetable fertilizers). The FIRMS code and import permit requirements depend on end use (human food, animal feed, pharmaceutical, fertilizer). If you're unsure which FIRMS code applies, cross-reference CFIA's Automated Import Reference System (AIRS) or check the current import requirements on CFIA's site. Filing the wrong code delays release while CFIA requests clarification, and that delay usually costs more in detention and drayage than getting it right the first time.
Who This Affects
Pet food manufacturers sourcing spray-dried porcine plasma (a protein supplement and palatability enhancer in high-end dog and cat formulas) are the largest group. Plasma is imported in bulk bags, often moving through a bonded warehouse before being blended into finished feed at a Canadian plant. The restriction meant either sourcing from non-US origins (Canada, EU) or navigating a heavier certification process. Lifting it opens the US supply base back up without extra paperwork.
Fertilizer importers clearing raw hog manure or manure-based compost blends see the same simplification. Manure moves in bulk or super-sacks, often direct from US hog operations to Canadian greenhouses or farms. The pseudorabies hold added a certification step that some smaller US exporters couldn't or wouldn't handle, pushing Canadian buyers to domestic sources or synthetic alternatives.
Pharmaceutical and biotech companies using untreated porcine blood fractions (serum, plasma) in research, diagnostics, or cell culture media also benefit. These products are temperature-sensitive and often move under CARM release prior to payment to minimize cold-chain dwell time. Any certification delay at the border risks product degradation. The streamlined USDA cert process reduces that exposure.
Specialty food processors importing uncooked pork snouts (used in charcuterie, traditional sausages, or ethnic cuisine) or edible porcine blood (blood sausage, black pudding) are a smaller group but face the same relief. These are niche SKUs, often moving in mixed LTL shipments with other pork cuts. Having the snouts or blood trigger a separate OGD hold while the rest of the load clears is a logistics headache. One certification set for the entire shipment is cleaner.
If your Montreal-area warehouse handles temperature-controlled porcine by-products, the simplified CFIA release should shave a day or two off inbound dwell time. FENGYE LOGISTICS runs a sufferance facility with reefer capacity and sees this kind of OGD-flagged freight weekly. Faster CFIA turnaround means less cold storage cost and tighter delivery windows for your downstream customers.
What Doesn't Change
Standard edible pork cuts (loins, chops, ribs, ground pork) were never under pseudorabies restrictions and continue to clear under the usual CFIA meat inspection regime. Raw pet food containing pork muscle meat (not blood or organs beyond standard offal) also moves as before.
The CFIA FIRMS coding, import permit requirements, and HS classification rules for porcine products overall remain the same. The only shift is the removal of the pseudorabies-specific attestation on the five product categories above when sourced from the US.
If you're filing CADs for porcine imports and haven't updated your internal CFIA reference sheets since this notice, flag it for your compliance team or your broker. The change is narrow, but filing with outdated OGD instructions burns time at the release desk.
The CBSA-CFIA Handoff
For importers newer to CFIA-regulated goods, this is how the OGD release works in practice. Your broker files the CAD through CARM. CBSA reviews the declaration and sees a CFIA FIRMS code. CBSA holds the release and sends the file to CFIA electronically. CFIA reviews the import permit, the USDA health certificate, the product description, and the HS code. If everything aligns, CFIA sends a release message back to CBSA. CBSA then issues the release notification to the carrier, and the freight can move.
If any document is missing or doesn't match the declaration, CFIA requests additional information. The broker emails the clarification or document, CFIA re-reviews, and the process repeats. Each round adds a day or more. The pseudorabies restriction added an extra layer of scrutiny to the five product categories. Removing it means one fewer potential hold point.
The timeline from CAD filing to CFIA release varies by product, port of entry, and time of year. Routine pork cuts clear in hours. Complex by-products or mixed shipments with multiple FIRMS codes can take two to three business days. Budget that dwell time into your inbound plan, especially if you're crossing the border via Montreal or Vancouver where CFIA workload is higher.
If your supply chain just added US porcine plasma or manure to the inbound mix, or you've been working around the restriction and want to revisit US sourcing, this is the kind of procedural shift we track daily. Get in touch.
Originally published at https://www.canflow-global.com/en/insights/us-pseudorabies-restrictions-lifted-what-changes-at-the-cfia-release-desk/.
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