Company president outlines measures taken after listeriosis outbreak in 2008
TORONTO — Maple Leaf Foods president Michael McCain last week wrapped an aggressive business agenda message in a cloak of contrition.
Since the 2008 outbreak of listeriosis from products produced at a Toronto Maple Leaf plant, McCain regularly makes a point of taking responsibility.
“Our company was responsible for the deaths of 23 Canadians and thousands more ill,” he said as he started a speech to a Conference Board of Canada food conference Feb. 8.
“I carry that with me every day.”
Later, he told the conference: “I am in no position to lecture on food safety and I don’t intend to.”
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Then he moved to his main point that Maple Leaf has responded to the food safety failure by improving food safety measures in its processing plants and planning to spend $1 billion to close older plants and expand and modernize other plants.
It includes a $120 million investment in the company’s Brandon hog plant that makes it one of the most efficient in North America.
A large bakery operation also has been built in Ontario to consolidate production.
He said within the company and financial community, there were skeptics about Maple Leaf’s investment plans but the restructuring strategy prevailed.
“Canada needs more companies of scale,” he said.
Then came more contrition.
The losers have been hundreds of job and community losses as smaller plants are closed down across the country.
“This was not the path of least resistance,” said McCain. “We do not enjoy doing this.”
He said Canadian processors and agri-food companies must ramp up their scale and investment if they are going to be competitive in the modern global agricultural economy.
“The harsh reality is our lack of competitiveness is a direct hit on our industry.”
McCain said the rising cost of food is a problem for the poor, not just in developing countries, but in Canada as well.
“Over half of Canadians say the cost of food puts pressure on their budget,” he said, more than those who cite higher taxes or other costs.
When pressed by former food sector executive Ron Wasik to explain if supply management rules are part of the problem, McCain acknowledged it is a “politically sensitive issue” but concurred that by supporting smaller farms, supply management is “an impediment” to developing an agricultural sector that is efficient be-cause of economies of scale.
He said the result is higher-than-necessary consumer prices.
McCain said the challenge for the worldwide food industry is to increase production to feed a growing middle class and the world’s hungry.
“We are going to have to produce as much food in the next 40 years as has been produced in the past 500,” he said.
Stuart Clark from the Canadian Foodgrains Bank challenged the assumption that increased production and productivity is the answer to growing world hunger.
The issue is distribution, he said. The world produces enough food but it does not always get to those who need it and too much of the world’s grain production is going into biofuel production.
McCain said historically, access to available food for the world’s poor has been an issue but increasingly, the issue will be increasing productivity to create the supply necessary to meet growing demand.
