Our Journey to Food Safety Leadership | Our Journey to Food Safety Leadership

Today the report on the Weatherill Investigation into the listeriosis outbreak last year was made public.  Ever since this investigation got underway, we have made sure that Ms. Weatherill and her team had complete access to our people and any information they required.  The final outcome is a very thorough report which provides valuable insights and recommendations to improve Canada’s food safety system.  I am personally grateful for the effort of the investigative team…this is a life and death matter and they took that mandate very seriously.

 It is also an important and a painful reminder of the factors that led to last year’s tragedy which resulted in the deaths of 22 people. Some areas of the report are tough on Maple Leaf and our practices as it ought to be.  We don’t protest our innocence and continue to take full responsibility.  No report, no matter how thorough, can match the level of self-criticism and remorse we have felt as a result of this tragedy.  We have left no stone unturned to improve every part of our food safety program as a result.    

What we believed was a strong food safety program at the time was quite simply, not good enough. We lacked the scientific rigour, investigative substance and Listeria quarantine nets that we have in place now.  We cannot expect people to forget and neither will we.  Ultimate accountability for last year’s tragedy rests with us. We can and will continue to use it as an opportunity to remind ourselves that lives and livelihoods depend on the duty of care that we take - day in, day out - to ensure that it never happens again.

The Parliamentary sub-committee on Food Safety released its final report today. Maple Leaf welcomed the opportunity to participate in the investigation.  My own testimony spoke to the need we saw for a much stronger set of regulatory requirements, especially in the area of testing, and resources such as the number of CFIA inspectors. 

The final outcome is a comprehensive report that has important implications for strengthening the food safety system in Canada and builds on the stringent new Listeria policy introduced in April this year which we believe makes for a safer system.  The report also provides clear direction for further improvement. 

In terms of key recommendations and improvements, Maple Leaf reinforces the following:

•          We continue to believe that the patchwork of existing regulatory regimes be pulled together as one national standard.  Consumers shouldn’t need to worry about whether the food they purchase is made in a federally or provincially regulated plant or imported from other countries. All food for sale in Canada should meet a consistent and enforced standard.

•          Maple Leaf supports the call for a comprehensive review of CFIA resources, recognizing that there must be sufficient inspectors to ensure compliance with tough new standards with the necessary training to conduct sophisticated root cause analysis of test results to identify potential risks.

•          Maple Leaf continues to advocate for any changes that result in faster identification of proven food safety risk, whether through increased inter-governmental and agency coordination or through accelerated testing and expansion of laboratory capacity.

There will continue to be global advancements in food safety knowledge and technology and it is our promise to learn from these and implement ongoing improvements. We will also be strong advocates for food safety with industry and government, sharing what we know and pushing to raise the bar to protect consumers. After the tragedy of last August, which resulted in the death of 22 Canadians, it is our responsibility to be a leader in food safety; a responsibility we take extremely seriously.

It’s very difficult to draw the conclusion that additional inspectors or additional time spent on the plant floor could have averted the tragedy of last August based on what we have learned. We have consulted world experts on this very topic because we truly want to know exactly what may have avoided this tragedy we were directly responsible for. Not a single expert to date has told us that more plant floor inspection would have done so.

There are good reasons why - bacteria is not visible. You simply cannot see it with the naked eye, nor can you smell it, taste it or feel it. The ONLY way you can detect bacteria in a modern food safety system is to do bacteria testing and then read and rigorously analyze test results. That is why plant floor inspection just isn’t that effective. It can spot the “big stuff”, but not deep microbiological growth. Because there is nothing to “see” with the eyes, modern technology in food safety requires inspectors to inspect “data” or test results, and test design, and test patterns. This requires more resources, but not on the plant floor because that’s not were they can best find the problems.

We sure wish it were as easy as more plant floor inspection. If it were, we would be the very first ones to ask for as much of that as possible.

In the case of Bartor Rd, those same experts feel they do know the root cause. They identified the most likely source of the contamination was Listeria bacteria harboured deep within one of the meat slicers at the Bartor Road plant. No Canadian company or the CFIA applied the sophisticated scientific and statistical analysis of test results that we do today which may have led us to detect the contamination - the knowledge and expertise simply did not exist in Canada last August.  But had we done then what we do now, we believe we probably would have detected the contamination and may have saved the lives of 22 Canadians.  That is the learning, and we are doing those things now.

Maple Leaf learned a great deal from last year’s tragedy, making numerous changes to implement global best practices within our own plants and identifying changes that were needed to improve Canada’s food safety system. Our position to government has been clear - that we believe more inspectors and increased investment in technical and scientific training and more resources in the CFIA laboratory network are needed to deliver its mandate. Government must make sure they are using their resources to actually make food safer, not wasting their time doing things that won’t.

Since the government’s new Listeria Policy was introduced on April 1 this year, there has been an increased presence and involvement of CFIA inspectors across all our packaged meat plants. The new Listeria policy is based on sound science and Listeria management practices, with a focus on testing and verification to avert repeat of last year’s tragedy.

Inspection staff are enforcing compliance with CFIA regulations, including stringent environmental and product testing, and scientific and risk-based analysis of test results.  Any positive environmental results for Listeria are immediately brought to the attention of the CFIA inspector, and corrective actions taken.  There is greater interaction between plant management and inspection staff, including more time reviewing plant data and test results, more frequent dialogue and collaboration on problem solving. 

The increased presence and focus of inspectors in recent months is welcome and a very positive step, but we can’t stop there.  There is more that needs to be done by industry and government in building a stronger food safety system to protect the interest of Canadian consumers.  While CFIA is continuing to implement its new Listeria policy and increase inspection, we must also ensure that government is vigilant in providing sufficient inspectors to get the job done. 

 We have advocated MORE regulation in food safety in Canada, not less.