Michael McCain, CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, stood in front of a couple dozen Toronto-area parenting bloggers two weeks ago and said, “Twenty-two people died on our watch.” He’s referring, of course, to the listeria outbreak of August 2008 which was caused by the contamination of a slicing machine in Maple Leaf’s Toronto packing plant. He expressed devastation about the fatalities and said, “I only wish we knew then what we know today.” I believe him.
Even more important than how the people at Maple Leaf feel, however, is what they’ve done. Michael McCain and Sharon Beals, the Senior Vice President of Food Safety and Quality Assurance, talked with us for over an hour, detailing the steps they have taken to transform the way Maple Leaf handles food safety. They hired the former head of the American Meat Institute, Dr. Randy Huffman, to serve as the Chief Food Safety Officer. They’ve invested in new and engaging training procedures and spent $24 million dollars in upgrades to their facilities’ infrastructure.Ā They now bake or steam clean all their equipment at high temperatures to kill any bacteria growth.
And they test. They conductedĀ over 125, 000 routine listeria tests in their facilities in 2009. They test at numerous thresholds, many of which are at a safe remove from any food to alert them to the presence of bacteria. Listeria is ubiquitous, so it will be found. The staff at Maple Leaf Foods are making it their business to know where it is. As Michael McCain said, “If we can’t find any, then we’re not looking hard enough.” There is no such thing as perfection in the food industry, but Maple Leaf is striving for excellence.
As I said, I believe them. I believe they are doing their utmost to raiseĀ food safety standards, not only at Maple Leaf, but also across the country. I believe their food is safe. As Emma Willer from herebewillers.com so aptly noted at the PR dinner, as parents we trust these companies to deliver safe food to our dining tables. Our life is a never-ending juggle of a million things and here, in Canada, we simply trust that at least the food we buy at the grocery store will not make our families sick. Yes, we need them to deliver on their safety promise.
Don’t think that means that parents aren’t concerned about the quality of the food they feed their families, though. In fact, there may never have been a generation of parents more concerned about what goes onto their children’s plates. And as the discussion between Maple Leaf Foods and the bloggers progressed it became abundantly clear that Maple Leaf needs to look above and beyond food safety and sell us on the nutritional and ecological value of their products.
Yes, keep doing all those listeria tests. Please do. But what this group of parents wanted addressed were concerns about nitrites and nutrition, BPA-free packaging, localized production, and the standards and quality of the very livestock from which our meat comes. As Maureen Dennis from weewelcome.ca said, Maple Leaf is the biggest buyer of meat in our country and they have the power to raise the standards of animal treatment and meat quality across the board.
What do parents want from a food company? We want to know that the long-term health of our families is important to them. We want to know that nutrition and ecologically sustainable practices are a priority. We want to know that not only is their food safe, it’s downright good for you. And how did Maple Leaf fare? Alright, I guess.
We heard that nitrates aren’t all that bad and everything in moderation. We heard about Maple Leaf’s Natural Selection line of cold cuts that contain no preservatives or artificial ingredients. We learned that their packaging is out-sourced to a reputable company and that Maple Leaf is concerned with providing top quality meat.
Michael McCain and Sharon Beals answered all these questions as best they could, but guess what? They’re not nutritionists and they didn’t seem fully prepared for the direction the discussion took. Now I know that Maple Leaf probably has an entire nutrition division and there are likely many, many people who could have better fielded the types of questions we asked. But they weren’t there. The CEO of the company and the Senior Vice President of Food Safety and Quality Assurance were there, and that’s fantastic, but it’s not enough. From a strictly PR point of view, I think the company should have anticipated these types of concerns and been ready to address them.
As it stands, I am definitely more likely to buy Maple Leaf for my family than I was before. I’ll still use my discretion about which of their products fit our nutritional needs, of course. And I hope that Maple Leaf Foods learns that not only do we trust them to keep us safe, we expect them to apply those same standards of excellence in providing us with healthy, nutritious and sustainable food.
Further reading: The Maple Leaf Food Safety Pledge
Other posts about the dinner: Circle of Life, Mississauga Kids, Hey Homee, Crumbs in the Minivan, Money Saving Canadian Mom, Toronto Teacher Mom (recommended), Here Be Willers (recommended), Through the Porthole, Our World from A to Z (recommended), Doodad Blog (recommended), Laural Dawn, GTA Parent, Canadad (recommended), Sleeping is For Losers, Practical Mum, How to Survive Life in the Suburbs, andĀ Mummy Eats (recommended)
And just so you know, the dinner I attended was part of a word of mouth marketing program put on by Matchstick. And the stuff I’m offering in this giveaway? Yeah, I got that stuff, too. In no way whatsoever does that have any impact on the opinions expressed in this post.
Giveaway: You could win a Maple Leaf prize pack that consists of a coupon for a free Maple Leaf Prime frozen meat product, one for a free package of Natural Selections cold cuts, and one for $5 off of any Prime product. You also get four vacuum-sealed Oven Fresh Baguettes, an apron, a digital meat thermometer, a pen and a cooler bag. Leave a comment on the Playground Confidential Facebook page (scroll down the wall to find the contest) to enter and I’ll use random.org to choose a winner next Thursday, June 17. Canada only. (You can also email me at rebecca@playgroundconfidential.com with subject line Giveaway to enter if you’d rather not use Facebook.)