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

Over the past few weeks government agencies in the U.S. and Canada have been investigating possible Salmonella contamination of Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP), an ingredient used as a flavour enhancer  used in a wide array of commercially-prepared foods, such as chips, soups, dips, salad dressings, sauces, frozen dinners and snack foods.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) are conducting investigations and following the situation closely.  There have been no reports of any confirmed illnesses in Canada or the U.S. linked to the food products containing HVP and the risk is considered to be very low.

The complete list of recalled products is available on the CFIA’s food safety portal at www.foodsafety.gc.ca or the FDA’s website at www.foodsafety.gov. If you have any of the recalled products in your home, you should not eat them.  You should check the sites regularly since it is expected that more products may be recalled as a result of the ongoing investigations.

The products that are being recalled are ready-to-eat products that contain the affected HVP ingredient and have not been subject to a  heat treatment or other process that would effectively eliminate the Salmonella.

No Maple Leaf products have been recalled, however we are closely monitoring the situation.  We are taking all measures necessary to continue to ensure the safety of our products.   

It is important to note that both the CFIA and FDA have advised that certain products  that contain the affected HVP do not represent a food safety risk and are not subject to the recall.  This includes:

• ready-to-eat foods where HVP may be added as an ingredient and which have been made using processes that would effectively eliminate Salmonella, such asnormal cooking practices
• ready-to-cook products that consumers cook or reheat at home after they buy them areunlikely to pose a risk providing the product is prepared at temperatures stated in the validated cooking instructions provided on the packaging. Thesecooking instructions shouldprovideinstructions thatensures the product reaches temperaturesthat effectively eliminate Salmonella.

Following safe food handling practices and maintaining proper refrigeration temperatures are critical to minimizing the risk associated with the presence of Salmonella in raw meats.  Thoroughly cooking product to the recommended internal temperature, for example 165ºF/74ºC in poultry products, effectively eliminates Salmonella.

Canadian Press (CP) issued a story yesterday about corrective action reports issued by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) 14 months ago, after an inspection at our Bartor Road plant.  

The average reader must be wondering how this plant could have so many issues only a month after re-opening from causing one of the worst food safety crises in Canada.

In the wake of the listeriosis crisis this plant was one of the most scrutinized plants in North America. Before it re-opened it required the approval of both Health Canada and the CFIA, which it received in September. After re-opening it was inspected daily by a team of inspectors from CFIA as well as from Maple Leaf.  As part of these ongoing and rigorous inspections, issues were identified, acknowledged and documented.  It is the documentation from a few of these inspections in October and December that became the subject matter of today’s CP story.

The CFIA and Maple Leaf determined at the time that there was no food safety concern.  What this very detailed inspection process provided was an early indicator of potential issues in the plant that need to be corrected. And we corrected them.  Immediately.

Over the past 12 -14 months- since these inspections were conducted - we have invested over $5 million in upgrades at the Bartor Road plant. This includes repair of floors and wall surfaces, air handling systems, caulking, better separation of raw and cooked areas of the plant, new pallets and new slicing and packaging equipment. We have implemented over 200 new operating procedures.

Most importantly, we have instituted an intensive program to train our staff and instill in them the belief that food safety must be the number one priority.  We continually train every one of our plant employees on our new procedures, which are based on the best food safety practices in North America.

Government inspections and the corrective action plans that result are an essential part of our food safety system. CFIA generates these reports and so does Maple Leaf, through our own inspections across all our plants. We welcome this government scrutiny.  Canadians hold us to a higher standard, as they should.  Our responsibility is to do our absolute best and to respond immediately where inspections reveal areas where we can improve.

Canadian food processors, retailers, distributors, institutions,  trade associations,  government agencies and listeria experts came together last Friday,  in the spirit that Food Safety should not be treated as a competitive issue, to discuss global best practices in food safety at our ThinkFOOD! Centre in Mississauga.  What united us was our shared concern in understanding the latest  thinking on food safety broadly, but specifically in recent practices and research findings  on Listeria  prevalence, persistence  and  growth control technologies, so we  as an RTE (ready-to-eat) food industry can continue to do a better job of protecting  public health.  

The focus of this food safety symposia was on Listeria - as the company behind the listeriosis outbreak that resulted in 22 deaths listeria control is  one of our highest food safety priorit ies .  The Listeria presentations focused on two general themes:

1) Listeria monocytogenes is pervasive in the food environment

2) The critical importance of preventing growth of Listeria to high numbers in foods. 

Dr. Martin Wiedmann from Cornell University and Dr. Kathy Glass from the University of Wisconsin, who both presented, are leading scientists in this area.  

Dr. Weidmann  presented compelling data to show Listeria monocytogenes has widespread distribution, from very pristine environments to urban environments as well as food processing plants, retail stores, and home refrigerators. His evaluation of the genetic analysis of strains that are known to be persistent in seafood plants was very relevant to our understanding of control in RTE food plants.   Listeria is different from other pathogens as the concentration level  at the time of consumption determines whether people become ill. We also know that vulnerable populations such as the elderly, pregnant women and people who have compromised immune systems are more susceptible to foodborne illnesses.  Listeria it is also different from other pathogens in that it  can grow at low temperatures, however higher storage temperatures speed its growth. The key  for preventing illness is to keep foods that could contain Listeria  below 4ºC.  We learned from Dr. Glass, based on modeling done  in the US , that reducing refrigeration temperatures in the supply chain from current levels to consistently below 5ºC could reduce the number of cases of listeriosis in the United States from 2,500 to just 28!

The researchers also spoke to ingredients that  ingredients that can be used that further control the growth of Listeria.  Ingredients such as lactates and diacetates, which are very common and safe food ingredients that  can function to raise the pH level and inhibit the bacteria’s growth  are widely used in the U.S. Now approved for use in Canada, we are actively pursuing adding these ingredients to our products in addition to exploring the use of emerging technologies that can also be successful in mitigating risk against foodborne pathogens.

Our plan is to hold these Food Safety conferences annually bringing together our peers, government agencies, industry and others as the opportunity for learning and sharing global best practices in food safety is endless.