This week the federal government issued a progress report on actions it’s taken to strengthen food safety. The report is available on the CFIA site and it outlines significant progress made since the 2008 listeriosis outbreak and in response to the report delivered in 2009 by the independent investigator tasked to make recommendations around strengthening food safety systems.

Key to this has been new money it announced towards a five year Food and Consumer Safety Action Plan. Just one of the investments the government is making: $13 million for increased inspection capacity for meat and poultry processing facilities this year and next. It has also been linking up more laboratories to the PulseNet Canada network to allows DNA fingerprints across Canada to be compared and to identify sources of illness in real time. It outlined clearer roles and responsibilities in the event of health emergencies and new leadership with the appointment in May of a Chief Food Safety Officer. And it has improved communications outreach so it can better inform Canadians, including new online tools.

And the government is working with companies like ours to ensure the entire system – with public and private sector members – is working together. The new Agri-Subcommittee on Food Safety (ASFS) has met several times and these meetings are facilitating good cooperation between companies such as ourselves and Health Canada, the CFIA and food safety partners.

There’s still more to do however – for government and companies. We’ll be looking for evidence of progress on steps the government has committed to complete, such as finalizing new guidelines around recalls and the revised policy on Listeria monocytogenes.  We’re especially interested in seeing the approval of a range of new technologies that are commonly in use elsewhere in the world such as technologies that facilitate rapid-testing of foodborne pathogens.  It’s important for Canadian companies to have approval to use the range of food safety tools that are being used elsewhere, notably in the US, so that our systems are robust and complementary to regulatory requirements.  We are also anxious for government to provide ongoing reporting of industry compliance to the regulatory requirements so that the industry can hold ourselves accountable for continuous improvement against meeting and exceeding the standards.

Canadians want to know that companies and government officials are cooperating and moving ahead with improvements and better regulation and we are. There’s been a lot of progress since 2008, demonstrating that the lessons learned during that year are being implemented and backed up by good collaboration between the food industry and public health agencies.

One of the commitments in Maple Leaf’s Food Safety Pledge is to share information and knowledge with government and others in the industry to raise food safety standards for all food production.  To that end, for almost two years now we, along with other stakeholders, have been actively participating,as Health Canada and the CFIA  review federal standards and regulations pertaining to Listeria in Ready to Eat Foods (RTE) and the prevention of Listeriosis.  This consultative process is being done with the view to further strengthen the scientific foundation of the regulatory policy directed at Listeria prevention and control in RTE foods.

Health Canada issued its revised draft policy on company practices pertaining to Listeria – “Policy on Listeria monocytogenes in Ready-to-Eat Foods” – and we responded with our comments during the period set by Health Canada as part of its consultation process.

In our view, the draft policy would represent good progress towards implementing the recommendations of Sheila Weatherill , the independent advisor tasked by the government to review Canada’s food safety system in the wake of the 2008 Listeriosis outbreak.  The draft policy follows very closely the scientific approach that is outlined in the Codex Alimentarius guidelines for Listeria in RTE foods, which smartly recognizes that risk from this pathogen is a function of cell population growth during shelf life and not merely a function of bacterial prescence.

Among the recommendations we made to Health Canada about the revised policy, was the suggestion that more be done to encourage testing for Listeria on non-food contact surfaces. Global best practice and our recent in-plant experience would prove that aggressively testing the plant environment where food products are prepared, and not just the end product and the surfaces that the food touches, is most effective. This is an approach we are taking over and above federal requirements today. And we believe national standards should do more to encourage testing non-food contact sites.

We encouraged the government to consider expanding the types of testing methods that industry in Canada can use.  Speed in learning about a problem early is essential.  Currently, it can take too long to get test results back from labs. Better and more rapid methods exist and are being used in other countries that can cut our time to results from about 6 – 7 days down to 2 or 3 days.  Being able to act on results four or five days sooner is a major improvement to food safety, and we think the revised policy should allow industry to adopt those new technologies.  Many other countries throughout the world have access to this more modern and rapid techniques, but in Canada the industry is limited to a very narrow definition of approved rapid methods that frankly, are not very rapid.

The fact that the tragic events which precipitated this policy review started with bacteria embedded in a deep harbourage point in our slicing equipment, is one of the reasons why we placed a strong emphasis on best practices in sanitation.  We believe the new policy should have a stronger focus on the importance of sanitation and related issues, such as sanitary equipment and facility design, that facilitates best practices in sanitation.  The purpose of having an aggressive environmental Listeria testing program is to measure effectiveness of the sanitation programs within a facility, so a stronger linkage in the policy between the testing program and sanitation would be appropriate.

That said, there are other issues that need to be addressed to help ensure food safety across the system.  We continue to make the case that different regulations for facilities that are provincially regulated, rather than federally regulated, and different rules concerning imported foods, constitute a vulnerability in consumer protection.

With the public consultation process now closed, work is now proceeding to review all the comments that were received with respect to the new Listeria policy.  We hope that after reviewing all the submissions, including our own, that Health Canada and CFIA will move quickly to get the revised policy and enhanced regulatory requirements in place by the end of the year.

Even when the new policy is made public, we will not stop searching for new ways to enhance our food safety practices. We have come to understand that food safety is not a destination but a journey.  There will always be new challenges and new ways of combating them. That’s why even now we don’t simply meet but, in many cases, exceed federal requirements.  And going forward, we will set our standards, not solely against the new policy and federal regulations, but also against our aspiration to be a global leader in food safety.

We’ve undertaken a lot of things internally at Maple Leaf Foods to promote food safety, and we’ve outlined a lot of that on this blog.  But ensuring public health overall in our communities doesn’t end at our front door – it is a total partnership. One of the things we have promised to do as part of our Food Safety Pledge is to build partnerships to share information and support education on food safety.  Another step in this direction is a partnership with the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) which we announced today.

‘Public health’ tends to be something people overlook or take for granted as part of ‘health care’.  People’s top of mind expectations of the health care system tend to focus on “illness” or the response to it rather than a holistic look at “health”.  Public health professionals help bring that focus in seeking to prevent illness and promoting good health. CPHA is a non-governmental organization focused exclusively on public health and they have worked for decades to tackle a number of other well-known public health causes.

The partnership we’re undertaking with them aims to provide those who tend to be more at-risk for foodborne illness with the information they need to prepare foods safely for themselves and their families.  These include seniors, pregnant women, people with immune deficiencies such as those with HIV and people undergoing cancer treatment. A first step and a goal of the partnership is to ensure that people who are at higher risk know that fact (based on their risk category) and then given the information they need to minimize risk with simple and useful food safety tips and tools.  This will happen through educational and online materials targeted at those at-risk Canadians.

Once these materials are developed – which will be available in French, English and other languages –  we’ll be sure to share the links to them here and through other means.