Maple Leaf Foods recall expanded again
TORONTO The list of ready-made sandwiches impacted by the massive meat recall at Maple Leaf Foods has expanded to include three brands distributed in the Maritimes.
In a statement released early Tuesday, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced that Atlantic Prepared Foods Limited was voluntarily recalling its Irving, Sub Delicious and Needs brand sandwiches.
The CFIA said the products, sold in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, could contain some of the 220 meat products Maple Leaf has recalled in the wake of a deadly, country-wide listeriosis outbreak.
Maple Leaf initiated the recall after listeria bacteria were detected on some of the goods produced in one of its Toronto plants, but eventually pulled all products made at the facility from store shelves as the outbreak escalated.
Federal lab tests have concluded that the strain of bacteria found at the Maple Leaf plant is linked to the outbreak that has killed at least six people so far and sickened at least 20. But CFIA officials and Maple Leaf executives insist more testing is needed to determine whether the tainted meat directly contributed to any of the deaths.
"That would be an investigation by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the local health units. They do the food history, so they would make the linkages," said CFIA spokesman Garfield Balsom, who added that work had begun.
The latest recall of prepared sandwiches comes a day after Calgary-based Lucerne Foods pulled its Safeway and TakeAwayCafe brand sandwiches from store shelves in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The CFIA has not reported any illnesses connected with any of the affected sandwiches.
Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Monday that the number of listeriosis cases across Canada is likely to rise, adding that 29 instances of the illness are currently under investigation.
"All the suspect cases have been diagnosed with listeriosis, but it is only via laboratory testing, the genetic fingerprinting, that we can determine if they are directly linked" to the outbreak, Ritz said.
Maple Leaf executives said they expect the recall to have a significant impact on the company's bottom line, costing $20 million and causing a decline in sales.
But the company's reaction to the outbreak has met with praise in academic and political circles.
Health Minister Tony Clement said the situation validated the country's food safety systems by proving their effectiveness, and analysts said Maple Leaf's strong reputation in the field will be enough to help the company weather the current spate of bad publicity.
"I think that as they've acted extremely responsibly, after a short while the consumers will forget about it... they've got a very short memory," said John Winter of John Winter and Associates.
Winter compared Maple Leaf's response to that of Johnson Johnson, one of the world's biggest makers of health and consumer products, when seven people in the Chicago area died after taking cyanide-laced capsules of Extra-Strength Tylenol in 1982.
At the time, experts predicted that the brand would never recover, but within a year Johnson Johnson had almost entirely regained its former share of the painkiller market.
Winter praised Maple Leaf's thorough response, which included both the extensive product recall and the temporary shutdown of the Toronto plant where the bacteria was discovered.
Maple Leaf officials said the plant will remain closed for a few more days to allow the company to conduct further assessments.
(The Canadian Press)
Click here for recall information from Maple Leaf Foods
Click here if you'd like to join the class action
For further information, please contact the Company's Consumer Affairs hotline at 1-800-568-5801.
Traffic Map