Michael McCain, CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, speaks to media Aug. 24, 2008 at company's office on St. Clair Ave. W.
Meat recall to top $20M
August 25, 2008
Staff Reporter
Canadians are being told to dig through their fridges and freezers for any of the 220 Maple Leaf Foods products recalled by the Toronto-based company after test results linked a plant in north Toronto to a nationwide listeriosis outbreak.
The recall is one of the biggest in Canadian history, federal officials said yesterday.
Michael McCain, president and chief executive officer of the 100-year-old company, said the expanded recall will cost the company an estimated $20 million in refunds to consumers and in plant cleanup.
In the wake of four deaths, "we had to take the most conservative approach possible," McCain said, noting the move to expand the recall was precautionary and there's no evidence of listeria contamination beyond the production lines originally under investigation. The company, with 23,000 employees and sales last year of $5.2 billion, produces and sells meat under the Maple Leaf, Schneiders and Shopsy's names. Meat from the Toronto plant is distributed nationally.
An official from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in a conference call last night the recall is "if not the biggest it's probably among the biggest at this point now that the recall has been extended to include all products from one facility. So it is very, very significant."
The full extent of the health crisis, however, won't be known for weeks, said Health Minister Tony Clement at a news conference in Ottawa yesterday.
"We expect that both the numbers of suspected cases and confirmed cases will increase as this investigation continues and samples continue to be received" from across the country, he said. Symptoms can occur for months after food is consumed, he said.
McCain said yesterday it was too soon to speculate on the quantity of meat ordered returned but advised consumers to look on company packages for the "establishment" code 97B – the number identifying the Bartor Rd. plant – and a best before date of Aug. 20, the day the plant shut down. Consumers should return recalled items to their retailer.
After a thorough sanitization effort, the plant is expected to reopen tomorrow pending satisfactory results from swab tests.
A full list of recalled products is available at thestar.com as well as the Maple Leaf Foods website.
It's difficult to know how much potentially contaminated meat product is out there, McCain saidat a news conference at company headquarters yesterday afternoon. Last week, the company recalled hundreds of thousands of kilograms of ready-to-eat meats at grocery stores, fast-food outlets, hospitals, retirement and nursing homes. To date, the recall and "retrieval of affected food products" has been highly effective, he said.
But this weekend it moved to expand the list after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed that the listeria bacterium found in two samples of recalled meat products matched the strain that has infected 21 Canadians, and is linked to the deaths of four people – three in Ontario and one in British Columbia. Thirty suspicious cases are under investigation. A third sample was a close match and retesting is being done.
McCain, who also held a news conference in Ottawa on Saturday night, reiterated his company's message that it deeply regrets this "terrible tragedy."
"It's clear the confidence in Maple Leaf and our brand has been shaken and I feel very badly about that."
The company has also taken out newspaper ads conveying its regret and McCain is featured in a message to consumers on YouTube.
A grim-faced McCain said he's unsure what the implications will be to Maple Leaf's future and bottom line but said "if we fundamentally do the right thing ... we act in the interest of public health, over time, I hope, that we can rebuild that confidence but that will be for consumers to decide, not me."
He also acknowledged that Maple Leaf looked at how other companies have effectively stick-handled crises. He declined to identify any of them by name, but the company is committed to remaining "open, transparent, straight, honest and accessible," he said.
"Lesson number one is focus on doing what's right for your customers and consumers and don't focus so much on the accountants and the lawyers," he added.
Lesson two, he said, is that "people are not really that interested in blame, people are interested in action ... this is not about fault, it's about action and what are we going to do about it because public health is at stake and that's how we've tried to behave."
Asked about compensation for victims, McCain said he wasn't able to address that at this time.
The company is enlisting listeria experts to assess and review the efficacy of the sanitization process and advise the organization on its process and technology, he said.
With files from Emily Mathieu