Tag Archives: Maple Leaf

How safe is Canadian food? Don’t ask

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The Maple Leaf makeover continued this week – a promotional video, settling all lawsuits for $27 million – yet some lingering questions remain. And neither Maple Leaf nor the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is rushing to answer the hard questions:

• who knew what when;

• why won’t Maple Leaf make their listeria test results public; and,??????

• what is Maple Leaf Food’s advice to those folks vulnerable to listeria.??????

Rob Cribb of the Toronto Star reports today that thousands of pages of documents detailing the federal government’s handling of this summer’s listeria outbreak are being withheld.

The Star and the CBC are seeking the records, which include emails sent between officials with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), Maple Leaf Foods and the City of Toronto, through an access to information request.

The CFIA has imposed extensions of a year or more on top of the normal 30-day deadline for responding to such requests.

The joint investigation used the federal access to information law in the hope that a request would yield records showing what went wrong, when officials first knew of the outbreak’s potential impact and how quickly the system kicked in to protect Canadians.

None of the records first requested four months ago have been released.

Repeated requests for an interview with Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz have been denied.

Maple Leaf’s textbook video skips the hard questions

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The most effective risk communication is also the most personal.

It’s about walking the talk.

Michael McCain, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods in Canada knows this, but just can’t quite pull it off.

McCain has personalized the message, taking responsibility for his deli meats that killed 20 people, but he can’t quite close the deal.

Below is a new video released today to, I guess, reassure Canadians.

From the beginning, I’ve asked some basic questions:

• who knew what when;

• why won’t Maple Leaf make their listeria test results public; and,

• what is Maple Leaf Food’s advice to those folks vulnerable to listeria.

Mr. McCain, you’ve got some high profile science advisors now. Would they recommend that their pregnant daughters eat any cold cuts? Would you tell old folks homes not to serve unheated deli meats to their clients? Will you make listeria testing public? And will you provide a full accounting of listeria tests and actions in the weeks leading up to the recall of Aug. 17, 2008. Does epidemiology matter?

So many questions, none of which are answered in your video.
 

Listeria, mommies and me

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Amy’s first meal after returning home with baby Sorenne? A snack spread of soft goat cheese with bite-sized pate and beet sandwiches, something I picked up from my Danish mentor, John Kierkegaard, back when I worked as a carpenter’s helper.

Smoked salmon or turkey breast, with tomato slices and fresh basil was on the menu for breakfast. That should cover many of the potentially listeria-laden foods that pregnant women shouldn’t eat for nine months. But you won’t hear that from listeria expert Michael McCain of Maple Leaf Foods, who is still strangely silent on the tough questions.

Amy’s mom was here for the birth and that turned out to be awesomely cool. But she did have to fly home through the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, which according to KNXV-TV, contains numerous restaurants with “major health violations.  In some cases, repeatedly failing to follow health code requirements. …

“Famous Familigia in Terminal 4 received 17 major violations including ‘deli slicer soiled with food debris’ and 12 of 15 employees ‘without food service worker cards. …’

“In October 2008, the Kokopelli Deli in Terminal 3 was cited after an employee ‘washed his hands then brushed his teeth with his fingers then went to work with food.’  In Terminal 4 at Flo’s Shanghai Cafe, employees were caught ‘cutting chicken with bare hand,’ ‘portioning peanuts onto chicken bare handed.’”

If you’re waiting on an e-mail reply from me on anything in particular, you may be waiting awhile longer. And while my usual e-mail style is terse, typing one-handed means the responses will be terserer. It’s nothing personal, just a baby thing. Really. It’s not you, it’s me. Really.

Michael McCain whines some more

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Michael McCain, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, whose products killed at least 20 people, didn’t like the coverage in the Toronto Star over the weekend – those weekends when McCain is, according to e-mails, usually at his Georgian Bay cottage.

So Mr. McCain wrote a letter to the Toronto Star that was published this morning. He says,

“Within hours of being notified by the CFIA of a positive test for listeria monocytogenes (sic – should be Listeria), products were recalled by way of a news release issued to alert consumers.”

As I’ve said before, holding yourself and your company to the CFIA standard is really going for the lowest common denominator. Many people were already dead and dying. CFIA may have a standard – and it’s impossible to know because CFIA won’t come clean on when evidence is sufficient to go public – of issuing a recall once a positive is found, As Globe and Mail reporter Andre Picard wrote on Sept. 11, 2008,
 
“People started dying in June, and it took until mid-August to trace the problem to the plant. On Aug. 13, when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was in the plant looking for the source of listeria monocytogenes, Maple Leaf started warning distributors to stop shipping some meats. But nobody told the public to stop eating them.”

And once again, Mr. McCain you say that listeria is everywhere.

“All food plants and supermarkets have some amount of listeria.”

If that is so, then why don’t your products have warning labels saying, “Listeria is everywhere, don’t feed my deli meats to pregnant women and old people. They may die.”

My pregnant wife is married to someone who has a PhD in food science. So she never ate McCain’s contaminated meat. I know a few other PhDs in food science who have told me the same thing. But shouldn’t other people have access to the same information? After all, listeria is everywhere. McCain, what would you advise a pregnant daughter or daughter-in-law, now that you’ve “learned more in the past three weeks about (food safety) than I have ever learned before in my lifetime.”

McCain concludes his letter to the Star by saying,

“Referencing the company as ‘slow to respond’ is absurd. I am disappointed with the absence of frequently communicated facts from both the CFIA and Maple Leaf in the story.”

Dude, you must pay over $100K for your communications thingies. Shouldn’t they at least be able to write a grammatically correct sentence? Who or what are these “frequently communicated facts?” 

Then work on something that is actually compelling.

What Maple Leaf’s Michael McCain was thinking the past two months

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Rob Cribb of the Toronto Star continues his excellent reporting on the Maple Leaf Foods listeria outbreak in Canada that has killed at least 20, and based on e-mails from the company’s CEO and president, Michael McCain (right, exactly as shown), I’m struck that the head of a $5 billion a year company that sells food is so whiney about food safety.

McCain blames the media for making a big deal out of the story, blames lawyers for being ambulance chasers, and says that,

"Eradicating listeria from a plant is akin to eradicating the flu from the office — we have best practice systems in place to reduce it to the absolute lowest level because it’s our reputation at stake, but eradication is just not possible."

So shouldn’t you warn those who are most vulnerable? Like pregnant women and old people?

The entire story is a good read, and it’s based on internal memos that McCain sent to thousands of staff (and which were regularly forwarded to me throughout the outbreak) but the most damning excerpt is this:

"I, for one, can say I’ve learned more in the past three weeks about (food safety) than I have ever learned before in my lifetime."

A company selling over $5 billion a year and bragging about it’s culture of food safety should be doing better than on-the-job training.
 

Maple Leaf invents food safety

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I blogged earlier today that any food company doing over $5 billion a year in sales should already have a food safety dude and, after at least 20 deaths, really shouldn’t be bragging.

It gets worse.

Maple Leaf Foods president and CEO Michael McCain said yesterday that by appointing a chief food safety officer,

"I think we’re the first in Canada and … possibly in North America to have that role inside a major food company.”

Wow.

Jack-in-the-Box appointed a food safety officer after the 1993 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. Odwalla acted like it invented flash pasteurization after the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in cider in 1996. I could go on. Michael McCain, your knowledge of food safety sucks.

And rather than pontificating, at some point Mr. McCain will provide a full accounting of:

• who knew what when;??????

• warn pregnant women and others at risk from listeria in deli meats; and,??????

• make your listeria data public.

Maple Leaf hires food safety chief – shouldn’t they have had one already?

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There’s an old saying about reformed smokers or drinkers or whatever … they’re the worst critics.

And they want everyone to share their religion.

Natural Selection Foods got food safety religion after the 2006 E. coli O157:H7 in spinach outbreak. Bill Marler recently said upon settling some lawsuits, “Special mention to Natural Selection Foods for its leadership role in preventing leafy green bacterial outbreaks.  All companies should strive for its standards.”

I disagree. There were 29 outbreaks on leafy greens before the 2006 spinach outbreak. Why didn’t Natural Selection pay attention before they got caught?

It’s an old tale. Now, after 20 confirmed deaths, and probably dozens more, Maple Leaf Foods is proclaiming they’ve hired a food safety dude.

I thought food safety would be a priority if a $5 billion company was selling food.

But I’m hopelessly naïve. Ask old girlfriends — or my wife.

Randy Huffman, formerly of the American Meat Institute, is going to be chief food safety dude for Maple Leaf Foods. Once he settles into his new post in Jan., maybe he can foster the food safety culture his boss, Michael McCain, claims to already have. And maybe he can address some outstanding issues, ones I wrote about back in Aug. 2008 when the enormity of the listeria outbreak in Canada was just emerging:

• who knew what when;

• warn pregnant women and others at risk from listeria in deli meats; and,

• make your listeria data public.

Here’s Randy, the meat science guy, on video.

The ham you can eat in a bathroom: Jon Hamm’s John Ham

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Who is that Hamm dude? He hosted Saturday Night Live, on Saturday, and his show, Mad Men, wrapped up Sunday night.

Included was a sketch for the fast-paced lifestyle, the one of eating on the run. Or with the runs. Jon’s ham is on a roll in the bathroom across from the toilet paper. Sounds like listeria; or a new market for Maple Leaf Foods Inc., which posted a third-quarter loss this morning of $12.9 million.  Order now, and receive a free mustard soap. And remember, "if it feels like a slice of ham, don’t wipe your ass with it."
 

The human face of foodborne illness – Maple Leaf listeria edition

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Robert Cribb of the Toronto Star writes this morning that,

“In the end, Frances Clark’s unfocused gaze never moved as she desperately gasped for air.

“The listeria-tainted meat served to her in a Belleville-area hospital and again in a nursing home this summer was ravaging her 89-year-old body. She began losing breath altogether. Seizures came. And then, on Aug. 25, days after she allegedly ate Maple Leaf cold cuts from a Toronto plant, she died.

“Details of Clark’s death and the deaths of two others are documented in affidavits filed in court this week as part of a planned class-action lawsuit against the food giant in six provinces, including Ontario. The graphic accounts written by family members of the deceased describe gradual deterioration from flu-like symptoms to fading consciousness and struggles for air.” …

"It was the most disturbing sight," recalls Clark’s daughter, Karen, who was at her bedside. "She was … gasping, like a fish out of water … Maple Leaf has to understand this is not acceptable. It hurts real families." …

"A second affidavit focuses on the case of Jeaninne Jacques, 69, who died July 28 after eating Maple Leaf ham. Her daughter, Linda Gosselin, said blood test results confirmed listeriosis was the cause of death. Tests filed in court confirm this.

"It is frustrating to think my mother passed away due to the negligence of Maple Leaf. … I believe (Maple Leaf) should be held accountable and their behaviour should change so that no one will suffer like this again."

Maple Leaf was given the OK to start selling deli meats from its Toronto plant yesterday.
 

A Maple Leaf hasn’t been near the Stanley Cup in 40 years; you’re safe from listeria

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Spirits were high Saturday night as the Toronto Maple Leafs opened their at-home hockey season night to the rhythms of the Smashing Pumpkins.

Fresh off an unexpected victory against defending Stanley Cup champs, the Detroit Red Wings, on Thursday, and with a bad Def Leopard live performance following the game, things were looking up for the Leafs.

The Leafs lost horribly to Montreal on Saturday night and reality set in.

Companies, like hockey teams, can also show flashes of brilliance, only to revert to old ways.

Michael McCain, president and CEO of Toronto-based Maple Leaf Foods, was widely praised for his compassionate and heartfelt response to the deaths of now 20 people from Maple Leaf cold-cuts.

But now Mr. McCain has taken to lecturing Canadians on the realities – or at least Mr. McCain’s realities – of the inevitability of listeria in everything, reminding me of the Tragically Hip song that goes, “I thought you beat the death of inevitability to death just a little bit. …

“We don’t’ go to hell, the memories of us do.”

McCain is using the increased media spotlight not to call for increased warnings to vulnerable populations, like the 20 who died, and pregnant woman (because, after all, listeria is everywhere) but to say how unfair it is that McCain’s Maple Leaf Foods has to compete with small plants.

"Right now, we have two-tier system. It is clear to me and, I think, most scientists would agree with this, that the provincial standards are not at the same level as the federal standards. … Right now, saying it’s acceptable for Canadian consumers to have one standard that applies to companies like Maple Leaf and another standard that is significantly below that for many, many others who are provincially inspected is not right for consumers. …

"That’s actually the travesty. If they were aware and they made a conscious choice that’s acceptable to them, everybody is free to make a good choice. But I think the travesty here is they’re probably not even aware of different standards out there."

OK, Mr. McCain, give consumers the choice and, as Carl says, stop whining. Market food safety. Advertize your allegedly superior food safety protocols. Put it on the label. And warn those populations who are particularly vulnerable – and missing from your latest missives.

Below is a video clip from the Canadian band and hockey fanatics, The Tragically Hip, with some apt lyrics:

it’s a monumental big screen kiss
it’s so deep it’s meaningless

Oh, and the joke making the rounds in Canada?

“Q & A’s from Health Canada

“ Q: The Stanley Cup was recently on tour in my town, and I kissed it. Do I have to worry about being infected by listeria?

“A: You are safe.  The Stanley Cup has not been in contact with any Maple Leaf in over 40 years.”