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.

This week the report of the Weatherill Investigation into the listeriosis tragedy of last year was released. It reflected interviews with government, Maple Leaf, industry, and victims’ family. I said and strongly believe that there is good medicine for government, the industry and Maple Leaf in the report. I hope government doesn’t wait long to move forward with the recommendations. I know we aren’t.

Maple Leaf has never ducked responsibility for what happened. We were accountable for the death of 22 Canadians. Our company will never be the same. We have moved from shock and remorse to anger that this happened on our watch and an absolute resolve that we will have one of the best food safety programs in the world.

I attribute this disaster largely to one factor – our misplaced confidence in our food safety system that just wasn’t good enough. It’s not that management didn’t care.  We went well beyond the regulations.  We invested millions.  At the time, the Canadian government recommended a Listeria management program but did not require one.  Unlike many companies, we followed the recommendation, and we were always early adopters of new standards.  We had a detailed testing protocol for Listeria and we aggressively sanitized any location where Listeria was found. We followed our procedures rigorously and we found no violations of that. That is why it was never escalated.

But – the procedures were inadequate!

The Weatherill report rightly noted that the main thing we got wrong was failing to analyze the pattern of Listeria test findings to trace them back to root causes – like the slicing machine that was harbouring Listeria. The Weatherill report suggested we didn’t  follow our own policy. We don’t quite see it that way, but the major point is the same. What trend analysis meant to us in August 2008 was tracking the number of test positives and making sure that every one was sanitized.  We did that.  What trend analysis means to us now is daily, scientific analysis to look for repeat patterns and root causes, full management oversight, and quarantine procedures.  We didn’t do that, because – tragically – it wasn’t in the protocol. It didn’t exist in the Canadian industry or government. It does now.

Some people understandably wonder how Maple Leaf could have had Listeria positive after positive without ever warning the public that we had a food safety problem.  This is really important to understand – and it’s hard to understand, especially if you lost a loved one to Listeria. 

Yes, we had periodic positive findings for Listeria.  Every plant that tests for Listeria finds positives for Listeria.  Listeria exists in every plant, every food establishment and every kitchen – almost every day.

We knew we had Listeria in the plant as all plants do – but, not in the food. Every time we found it, we sanitized that part of the plant extra-carefully, and then we retested three times to make sure the Listeria was gone.  And we never had a repeat positive.  We believed our program was working.  We were confident that we did not have a food safety problem.  We were sure we had nothing to warn anybody about.

We were wrong, tragically wrong.  Because we never tracked our positive findings back to that contaminated slicer, we never got to the source of the Listeria – and eventually the Listeria got into some of our food. 

Would we have acted sooner if we had known then what we know now? Yes – and we could have saved lives in the process. That is something I live with every day, and because of that I will never be satisfied until we have the best food safety system in the world.  This is not much comfort to the victims and their families, I know. But it is what I can do to try to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again.