This week I participated in my very first “bloginar” – a meeting with about 15 bloggers in the Vancouver area. These were parents who blog regularly about a range of topics of interest to moms and dads and are read by parents across North America and beyond.  Healthy eating and food safety are high on the list of topics of importance to them.  We spent the evening talking about their concerns about the safety of the food system and what Maple Leaf is doing to advance food safety.  

Top concerns and questions raised by these bloggers focused on the recall of 2008 and the discovery of Listeria in Maple Leaf products. They wanted to know about the training programs that are in place now to make sure we’re following best practices. They asked what will help ensure we remain motivated to continue to raise the bar on our standards. One very good question on that topic was whether or not employees feel comfortable taking action if they have a food safety concern in our plants.

These are important questions for Maple Leaf. We went to great lengths to determine what happened in 2008 that caused the death of 23 Canadians. In responding to their questions I had a chance to explain the new practices we put in place to ensure better sanitization based on what we learned from detailed investigations. I talked about how we continue to submit our plants to regular and random audits and are working towards certification under the internationally recognized standards (specifically what’s known as GFSI or Global Food Safety Initiative standards).  And we actively encourage employees to let us know if they have a food safety concern or ideas to improve how we do things…it’s a critical part of building a culture of food safety.   

We also talked a bit about what consumers should know and can do to protect their families, and the types of home cleaning products such as bleach or even vinegar that can act as antimicrobials.

We’re really grateful that people came out and shared candid feedback last night. It was informative and good conversation and I think participants enjoyed it; I know I did. We have to stay in touch with what consumers expect of us bacause it’s going to help us do a better job.

After about 30 years in this industry, I joined Maple Leaf in late 2009 as SVP Food Safety and Quality Assurance, in part because I was impressed with the company’s commitment to lead in this area. I want to thank those Vancouver bloggers I met for coming out to the event. I’m looking forward to more sessions like this as well as continuing the discussion on-line. Keep visiting this blog as we’ll be sharing more updates. We want your comments!

This is an important day for us at Maple Leaf Foods.  We are making a public pledge to Canadians about what we promise to do about food safety, both in our products and across the industry.  This flows from the very deep commitment we made following the listeriosis outbreak of August 2008 that resulted in the death of 23 Canadians.

In the wake of this tragedy, I made some solemn undertakings on behalf of Maple Leaf Foods to the people of this country about our determination to do everything in our power to prevent an outbreak like this from ever happening again.  I meant that then, and I mean it now as much as ever.

We have spent the last 18 months seeking the advice of the best experts in the world (and in many cases hiring them), examined every one of our previous practices, made significant improvements in all areas of food safety – testing, training and sanitization – and worked with industry and government to raise the bar. We’ve also reached out to Canadians in many ways to hear from you what your concerns are and what you expect.

Our Maple Leaf Food Safety Pledge is the embodiment of these efforts.  It is our public commitment to you about what you can expect from us and what we expect of ourselves.  It is the expression of our commitment to be second to none in the area of food safety.  It is an expression of our determination to be improving all the time. We hold ourselves, and you should hold us, accountable against these standards.

Please take the time to read the Food Safety Pledge.  We welcome your feedback and comments. I also encourage you to return to this blog and participate in what I hope will become a lively and informative source of discussion about food safety and health issues.

On behalf of the 23,500 employees of Maple Leaf Foods, we are grateful for the trust and confidence Canadians have placed in us.  We remain committed to earning your trust each and every day.

There is a heightened awareness of food safety and Listeria with the Siena Foods recall and link to listeriosis illnesses in Ontario. Health Departments are more vigilant and better equipped to track and identify food-borne illnesses like listeriosis, and stronger government regulations implemented over a year ago require a lot more testing, which helps track the source of a problem when it occurs. These improvements mean safer food, and also mean there’s a lot more awareness and action when there is a problem.

We at Maple Leaf Foods do not have many of the facts about the current recall and outbreak investigation at Siena Foods, as they are not affiliated with our company, but we do have a deep understanding of the food safety changes that have occurred broadly within the industry and with government over the last 18 months.

People would be wrong to take from this that the industry hasn’t changed as a result of what went wrong at Maple Leaf Foods after the listeriosis outbreak that caused the death of 22 people. Tough new regulations were put in place. Food companies have had to come up a learning curve very quickly. We aren’t where we want to be, but we are better than we were. Government needs to make sure that the regulations are strictly enforced, and that we have enough inspectors, with the right skills, to accomplish this.

For our part, Maple Leaf made a deep commitment to becoming a global leader in food safety as a result of what occurred in August, 2008 and the Listeriosis illnesses and tragic deaths that were linked to our products. 

You have read on this blog and in other news from our company how our processes, systems, people and technologies have changed to ensure that an event such as what happened in August 2008 will not happen again. Here’s some of the changes we have made…

Transparency: every day there is a senior management team meeting to discuss Listeria environmental testing results from the previous day from every one of our 26 ready to eat (RTE) facilities. We probe any positive test results and implement quarantine procedures immediately if there is a positive on a food contact surface.

Testing: our environmental testing program is one of the more aggressive surveillance testing plans. We generated over 125,000 routine Listeria test results for our facilities in 2009, over twice what would be required by regulations for our facilities. The current percentage positive rate is less than 0.5%, which is consistent with best practice in North American meat plants.   In addition to routine environmental Listeria testing, our teams conduct thousands of investigative microbiological tests annually to gain a better understanding of our process.

Training: we have trained our people on our new food safety procedures and raised their awareness and understanding of their role in producing food safely. We have recently launched a new adult learning interactive training device being piloted in 5 plants that will allow managers and line supervisors to deliver food safety to front line employees in an interactive learning setting.

Producing Safer Food:  we are adding simple ingredients to our prepared meat products that have been scientifically proven to prevent listeria growth. Their scientific names are potassium lactate and sodium diacetate, and result from the natural fermentation of renewable food sources like corn. 

Meeting Global Standards:  we have begun a process to have all of our 76 processing facilities certified by an independent third party to food safety standards that have been set by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI). We want to be measured against the best in the world… and meet this standard.

 Sharing What We Learn: Maple Leaf has committed to openly sharing what we’ve learned, how we’re changing and global best practices with others in the industry. In the fall of 2009 we held our first annual Food Safety Symposium with over 100 participants including competitors, government and scientists. In 2010 our theme is the role of the Global Food Safety Initiative in supporting safe food.

The entire industry is impacted when the safety of our food supply is questioned. Even though Siena Foods is a competitor, we are taking this latest Listeria issue very seriously, including an open offer to share our learnings with them. The latest listeriosis cases in Ontario absolutely reaffirm the need to stay vigilant, for the Canadian government to strongly enforce the tough regulations they have put in place, and for food companies to implement best practices, share our learning, and continue to raise standards across the industry.