PQA, YQCA & TQA
Pork Quality Assurance® Plus (PQA Plus®) provides a framework for significant, relevant food safety standards and improved animal well-being. Pork producers pride themselves on the commitment to continuous improvement. PQA Plus is regularly revised to increase its effectiveness, incorporate new research information and ensure the program’s validity.
Maintaining its food safety tradition to ensure U.S. pork products continue to be recognized domestically and internationally as the highest quality and safest available, PQA Plus also provides information to ensure producers can measure, track and continuously improve animal well-being.
Youth for the Quality Care of Animals
In May 2018, the National Pork Board fully implemented Youth for the Quality Care of Animals (YQCA) as the quality assurance program for swine exhibitors. The Youth PQA Good Production Practices (GPPs) are within the YQCA content, only identified in a different way. For additional information on YQCA visit, http://yqca.org/.
Transport Quality Assurance® (TQA®) is a program that helps swine transporters, producers and handlers understand how to handle, move and transport pigs and the potential impacts of those actions on pig well-being and/or pork quality. Anyone who handles or transports pigs, or sets protocols for handling pigs, is a potential influencer of animal well-being and pork quality.
