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

“Creating a high performing food safety organization” is one of the pillars of Maple Leaf’s Food Safety Strategy.  We are committed to building a world-class food safety and quality team to ensure we have  strong  technical and scientific expertise throughout Maple Leaf.

I am pleased to welcome Peter Slade to my team as Senior Director, Food Safety Technical Affairs.  Peter is an internationally recognized food safety leader with over 30 years of diverse and extensive experience globally in the food industry, including experience in the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Saudi Arabia and China.

Peter will play an integral role on the food safety leadership team and specifically will be responsible for working closely with each Maple Leaf business unit to identify opportunities to further mitigate potential food safety risks.  His work will include establishing clear lines of communication with the product development teams on new products as well as evaluating methods to reduce risk in current product lines.  Peter will keep abreast of new food safety technologies, best practices and the latest in food safety research. 

Peter began his career as Research Officer at Campden and Chorleywood Foods Research Association, U.K. and then in a Microbiologist position at Midwest Research Institute, U.S. where he provided food safety technical support to the government of Saudi Arabia.  He then joined Campbell Soup Company, U.S. as manager of Technical and Analytical Services. Peter then went on to McDonald’s Corporate Food Safety group where he led the Supplier/Distribution HACCP Programs across a number of different commodities as well as leading the McDonalds Food Safety Advisory Council.

Peter was recruited to the National Center for Food Safety and Technology (NCFST), an FDA and industry- funded research and education center. During nearly 10 years with the Center, he directed food safety research programs as well as taught a number of graduate classes in food science, microbiology and food safety. Peter also successfully led the FDA-sponsored Allergen Task Force, and chaired the committee that developed the standardized Juice HACCP Training Curriculum.

Peter holds a Ph.D. in Food Science (Microbiology) from the University of Guelph.  

We’re very pleased that Peter is bringing his wealth of expertise and knowledge to join our team and participate on the blog.  Welcome to Maple Leaf Foods Peter!

Upon joining Maple Leaf as Chief Food Safety Officer earlier this year, one of my first priorities was to bring together a team of independent experts to increase our knowledge in the areas of food safety, microbiology and public health.  The Maple Leaf Food Safety Advisory Council is comprised of some impressive food safety experts whose primary mandate is to challenge Maple Leaf’s status quo on our food safety program and keep us abreast of any new research, testing methods and other emerging trends from around the world. 

The following individuals have been appointed to the Food Safety Advisory Council:

 o  Dr. Harvey Anderson, Director, Program in Food Safety, Nutrition and Regulatory Affairs and Professor, Nutritional Science and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto;

o   Professor Colin Dennis, Chairman, Industry Advisory Group, International Agri-Technology Centre Ltd, and retired Managing Director of the Campden, BRI food research centre in the U.K.;

o   Dr. Mansel Griffiths Director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety and Chair of the Masters Program in Food Safety at the University of Guelph;

o   Dr. R. Bruce Tompkin, a microbiologist with more than 45 years in the food processing industry and one of the fathers of HACCP;

o    Mr. John Weisgerber, former Director of Quality for a major North American meat processor with nearly 40 years experience in quality and food safety management.

 We recently established the Council’s key priorities for the first year.  These include performing an ongoing critical review of our food safety strategy that will include recommendations on additions or modifications to advance Maple Leaf’s programs, provide insight on any global emerging food safety risks and guidance on Maple Leaf’s employee training and education programs

With our first meeting behind us, I know this accomplished team will bring a wealth of knowledge and breadth of expertise to Maple Leaf that will support our commitment to becoming a global leader in food safety.

It may be over a year since the listeriosis outbreak that resulted in the death of 22 Canadians, but it is still very much fresh in our minds. We made one big commitment and that was our goal to become a global food safety leader. We’ve put that into action over the past year and made many improvements.  We’ve gone well beyond regulatory requirements in our testing to find and control listeria. We’re also implementing  newer rapid-testing  methods and protocols at our Hamilton Ontario plant on a pilot basis. Once th ese  methods are approved by the  Canadian government it will reduce the amount of time it takes to get test results from  about 6 - 8 days down to two days . This will be a big improvement  over the current situation and will enable faster response times for Maple Leaf, and any other food processors who choose to adopt the protocols.

It is widely accepted scientific fact that Listeria is commonly found in food processing environments.  What we have learned over this year is that by aggressively implementing control procedures and new technologies in our plants we can prevent the tragedy of 2008 from ever happening again.

At our Investor Day, which was held last Monday, I laid out  a comprehensive food safety strategy that will take us from where we are today to where we plan to be - a global leader - and what it will take to get there.  We expect that we will invest up to $50 million over the next three years to implement this plan. Have a look a the presentation on our website and let us know if you have any questions or comments.