Following up on the Listeria outbreak in Maple Leaf Foods, the CEO of Maple Leaf, Michael McCain, said that the source was most likely found. In a Friday evening news conference, he revealed that the two slicing machines are the most likely source. If you’ve seen any of the video of the sanitization of the Maple Leaf production lines, these things are the size of a small car with an equal number of parts.
As part of the cleanup, Maple Leaf, the companies hired to sanitize the line, as well as government inspectors completely disassembled the two machines. The existing protocol for cleaning, which Maple Leaf normally exceeded several times over, never called for a complete teardown. The assumption probably made by the manufacturer, was that manufacturing guck could never get that deep into the machines. Apparently it did and is the ‘most likely’ cause of the Listeria outbreak.
Today the deaths attributed to the Maple Leaf Food plant 97-B Listeria outbreak is at 13 confirmed, with 38 cases of suspected Listeriosis also linked to the plant. A $20 million dollar recall is part of the equation, as well as a sharp stick to the eye Maple Leaf Foods reputation.
However, in looking at the whole situation, who is to blame? Nobody really. Maple Leaf did their due diligence, several times over and above the Federal standards. When it was found that the North York Maple Leaf Foods plant was the possible source of the outbreak, they shut it down immediately and started to recall anything from the plant by being very public about the outbreak.
There was no hushing things up, or mealy-mouthing PR platitudes. Michael McCain, the CEO went to the front of the line and took responsibility for it, then did more than one would expect a big corporation to do to find the source of the problem. And fix it.
Yes, Maple Leaf Foods has a vested interest in making sure things are fixed as their reputation is a significant part of their corporate financial value. But they also recognized the human side of the equation, the trust that the consumer places in their products.
Will the Maple Leaf Food outbreak become a textbook case for the PR and Marketing classes? Quite possibly, as Maple Leaf Foods acted responsibly, honestly and with complete transparency, as soon as facts were available. They kept the consumer in the loop and also apologized for something going wrong, which is unheard of, but seems sincere.
Should you buy products from Maple Leaf ever again? That is truly the $20 million question.
My answer is yes, if only because Maple Leaf was straight with me as a consumer. The actual problem was something that nobody could have predicted.
RoadDave 