[Viewpoint] Taking Responsibility

After the first reports of a possible Listeria outbreak related to its meat products, Maple Leaf Foods president Michael McCain didn’t mince words; he was open and honest with the media and the people of Canada.

“We have excellent systems and processes in place but this week it’s our best efforts that failed — not the regulators, not the Canadian food safety system,” McCain said, according to the Reuters wire service. “I emphasize this is our accountability and it’s ours to fix, which we are taking on fully.”

Maple Leaf closed its Toronto plant for a month; the cost of the recall is estimated at $20 million. After a month’s investigation, inspectors fingered some of the plant’s 84 slicing machines as the likely culprits, saying the Listeria bacteria harbored deep inside, even as the plant performed all the recommended and required cleaning and sanitation procedures.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has since written tougher rules for deli meat producers, requiring they disassemble and aggressively clean meat slicers. Maple Leaf also says it has implemented more stringent controls on its slicing machines, and has established a Listeria management program to monitor the bacteria that exist in the environment.

And while the outbreak was one of the largest in Canadian history and has had a terrible impact — 19 dead and 49 sickened as of this writing — McCain did right by his 150-year-old company and his customers by taking responsibility when it was his to take. By coming out in front of the outbreak early, by making himself and members of his company available to the media, and by making a transparent effort to fix the problems, McCain sent a clear message: Something went wrong, and we’re working to fix it.

If he had not, if he had instead taken the route of stonewalling and backpedaling and pointing fingers, the message to consumers would have been: Something went wrong, but we don’t know what it is, and we don’t trust you enough to tell you about it.

After Maple Leaf re-opened its Toronto plant in late September, McCain said: “We recognize that we have to rebuild confidence. I think there are some who will respect the fact that we handled this in a precautionary way … some of them will give us back their confidence, we hope sooner rather than later. Others may take longer. I think the only thing I can point to is time. Food safety is a journey, it is not an event.”

Recent research by Deloitte shows that 57 percent of consumers stop purchasing certain foods after recallls. There are some problems that are difficult to control — like Listeria growing deep inside a slicing machine. But, what plant managers can do is control how they react to what happens in their plant. They can rethink the way they run operations and train their employees (see “Cross Contamination” for more on training). What’s more, they can come out in front of a problem and be open and honest and, in the end, maintain the public’s trust. They have a responsibility to themselves, and to the industry.

The author is Assistant Editor of QA magazine.