Company Profile

Maple Leaf Foods is a leading consumer packaged food company, headquartered in Toronto with operations across Canada and in the United States, United Kingdom, Asia and Mexico.Maple Leaf Foods products are sold in many countries worldwide such as the U.S., the U.K., Japan and Mexico with the majority of the sales in Canada. Maple Leaf Foods is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol MFI.

In 1991, the merger of Maple Leaf Mills Limited and Canada Packers Inc. created the company now known as Maple Leaf Foods Inc., Canada’s largest food processor.

Maple Leaf Mills was created in 1961 through the amalgamation of the Maple Leaf Milling Company Limited, Toronto Elevators Limited and Purity Flour Mills Limited. Its origins can be traced back over 170 years to Grantham Mills, built in 1836 in St. Catharines, Ontario. Canada Packers Inc. was formed in 1927 in Toronto, Ontario through the amalgamation of the Harris Abbatoir Company, Gunns Limited and the William Davies Company – Canada’s oldest meat packing company founded in the 1860’s. 

TheIR Business InCLUDES:

Meat Products, which include the value-added fresh meats, chilled and ready to cook products, chilled ready to serve products and packaged meats.

Bakery Products, which include fresh breads, rolls and ethnic breads, bagels, croissants and morning goods, premium artisan bakery products, frozen par-baked and fully-baked goods and fresh pasta and sauces. Maple Leaf Foods Inc. owns 90% of Canada Bread Company, Limited one of Canada’s leading bread companies.

Agribusiness Products, which include our rendering, bio-diesel production and hog production operations.

Source:   http://www.mapleleaf.ca/en/corporate/company-info/ and wikipedia

Company Responsibilities

Charitable Initiatives:  The company extends expertise in food processing and distribution to support programs, allowing its business policies to offer all possible support to various charitable organizations and through food and financial donations that fight hunger in our communities. Maple Leaf Foods and its employees is extensively involved in charities that benefit from their skills and desire to help others.

These programs include support to food banks, centres that deliver emergency food services. Apart form these, education, particularly in food nutrition research, is offered on national and international scale. Food donations is provided to organizations that distribute foods to those less fortunate.

Animal Welfare: Maple Leaf Foods continues to maintain balance between the basic needs of animals and providing consumers with the best quality food at affordable prices. Those involved with raising, handling and processing of animals and poultry serve as stewards of the animals. Also, all meat processing operations are federally inspected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.


Environment: Maple Leaf Foods is committed to environmental responsibility and reduced consumption of non-renewable resources and waste generation. Several environmental projects covering areas such as air emissions, waste water control and waste management etc. Employees are educated on the environmental policy and environmental protection principles.

Health & Safety: Safety and health of its employees is something the company strives for everyday. All injuries are reported as per the company rules and policies.

A picture from inside the Maple Leaf  Foods Toronto Plant

Source: http://www.mapleleaf.ca/en/corporate/company-info/company-responsibility/

Quick Question: What importance does a company's responsibility portfolio hold for it to maintain business?

LISTERIA recall...McCain apologizes for Maple Leaf listeria outbreak in August, 2008

On Aug. 23, a Toronto Maple Leaf Foods plant was confirmed as being involved in the outbreak of the food-borne illness, caused by the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. A day later, Maple Leaf upgraded a precautionary recall of 23 of its products, issued the previous week, to all 220 packaged meats from the plant, which has now been shut down. 

Michael McCain, the CEO of Maple Leaf Foods at a news conference in August 2008. (CBC)

The company had been highly visible since the crisis hit. The firm's CEO, Michael McCain, held press conferences and posted an apology on its web site. A company spokeswoman did interviews in a wide range of media. The firm also ran TV spots and took out advertisements in newspapers.


Ever since the illness outbreak, there are several testings that are conducted on the company products in order to ensure safe and healthy consumption by the consumers. The company is making all efforts to build trust, honest support and credibility in order to regain its lost customers.


As a result of the listeria outbreak, Maple Leaf's reputation score dropped from 66 out of 100 to 8 out of 100, as per the 2009 Marketing/Leger Corporate Reputation Survey. However, the CEO decided to convey his empathy and resolve at fixing the listeria outbreak. This act of official apology by the firm's CEO helped the company recover from negative publicity. As a result of this apology, the company's reputation score went up to 40 out of 100, with 63 percent of Canadians positively opinionated of the company. 
                                                                                                                                          
The real question is: Were the company profits sliced off as a result of Listeria outbreak? 
On its way to recover from the effects of the listeria outbreak, the company profits suffered a downfall in its share prices and year ending profit, 2008. However, the CEO's apology created a positive opinion among people, consuming the firm's products, which aspired the company profits to raise again. According to analysts, Maple Leaf shares rose up 42 cents up 3.9 percent at $10.88 CAD on the Toronto Stock Exchange, after an year of the listeria outbreak. Even after the listeria outbreak in 2008, Maple Leaf Food Inc. has gradually returned to profitability.The company is actively working on initiatives to improve their business in order to set upright the company's growth.

MAPLE LEAF FOODS INC. share price change from July, 2008 to Nov, 2009

The graph above shows that, although, the share prices started falling after the listeria outbreak in 2008, the prices for Maple Leaf Foods Inc. started rising up to $11.23 CAD. Quarterly revenues unveiled an increase in figures, too, eventually giving rise to company profits.

Information gathered from: Guffey, E., Rhodes, K., Rogin, P. (Eds.). (2008). Business Communications (6^th ed.). Toronto: Nelson., and
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=MFI.TO&a=06&b=30&c=2008&d=11&e=31&f=2009&g=m
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2008/08/27/f-crisisresponse.html
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/717348--maple-leaf-foods-recovers-from-listeria-crisis

Maple Leaf Foods CEO Michael McCain named Business Newsmaker of the Year, 2008

Michael McCain’s response to the listeriosis outbreak that killed 20 Canadians in 2008 was an act of genuine compassion and honest apology. His heart-felt apology was accepted by the public on a personal scale. Moreover, he was appreciated for bethinking on all the products at the Toronto Maple Leaf plant, even when they hadn't been linked to listeria in any way. 


The exceptional handling of this crisis was noticed by the media and consumers. He was beheld as one of the most committed, sincere and trustworthy business man who could have hustled behind doctors and lawyers to prevent such confession. However, he thought it was his righteous duty to accept what had been done. Such confession by the company CEO acknowledged Maple Leaf Foods as one of the most trusted brand in 2009.


The Canadian Press awarded McCain as Canada's 2008 Busniess Newsmaker of the year for turning this public health disaster into a business success story along with Canadian Business that recognized him as one of The 25 most influential People in Business and called him "the Canada's poster boy for crisis management and corporate responsibility."

Maple Leaf Foods CEO, Michael McCain at a press conference

For further information, visit this link: http://www.fftimes.com/node/218140

Quick Question: Is this apology considered as a successful strategy for businesses to be in the limelight??
Answer: According to many business analysts, this act of Maple Leaf's CEO, Michael McCain, was regarded as one of the top plan of action to remain in public attention. However, the public viewed this apology as a sincere and genuine effort  to overcome the sad tragedy that took place in 2008 as a result of the company products.

Awards and Recognition

Maple Leaf Foods has received  numerous awards and honours which have help them achieve respect in the business community. Gaining prestigious awards have also helped them improve their products, services, enhance reputation and hence, generate growth. 

The company won the 2011 Product of the Year in the Fresh Deli category. Bagging this award was one of the greatest achievements by the company as this award is the broadest category distinction award for consumer products that rewards innovation and has global recognition. It was also declared the winner of Canada's Top Ten Corporate Cultures program in 2010. It had also won this award in the year 2007. Apart from this, Maple leaf Foods products: Maple Leaf Prime Gourmet Fire-Roasted Portobello Mushroom Chicken Breasts, Maple Leaf Prime Gourmet Sun-Dried Tomato & Feta Pork Chops and Caramilk Snack Cakes, were winners of Best New Products Awards in 2011.

Three Maple Leaf plants have also received awards for displaying cases of excellency :

• Maple Leaf Consumer Foods, Brandon, Manitoba (Tier 2)
• Maple Leaf Consumer Foods, Kitchener, Ontario (Tier 1)
• Rothsay, Dundas, Ontario (Tier 2)

Winning these awards over the years has demonstrated a series of commitment and hard work by the company and its employees. It re-energises everyone involved and promotes a real sense of achievement amongst everyone- starting from the CEO Michael McCain to the clerical workers at Maple Leaf Foods.

The above information is collected from Maple Leaf Foods official website.

Maple Leaf Foods Safety Pledge

Food safety is an increasingly important public health issue. Governments all over the world are intensifying their efforts to improve food safety. These efforts are in response to an increasing number of food safety problems and rising consumer concerns amongst food-packaging companies.


Maple Leaf Foods is one of the most popular consumer packaged companies in Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Asia and Mexico. To maintain food safety at the plants is not an easy task for them, especially, after the listeria outbreak. Consumers are more careful in choosing their products and they do have that note at the back of their mind which holds back their options with maple leaf. However, the company has put in enough efforts to provide consumers with good quality food prepared in a safe environment.




A few highlights of their food-safety pledge are:

• Committed to become a global leader in food safety implementation of best practices in sanitation, testing, technologies, product formulations and manufacturing
• Towards building a strong culture of food safety, with high performance teams, through continuous training, education and communicating results.
• To follow the highest standard of testing and analysis to identify potential risk. Any test that raises food safety concerns will result in immediate quarantine, with no products leaving the plant until the Company and government regulatory authorities are confident that the food is safe.
• Committed to setting and meeting high standards and measuring our performance against the Global food Safety Initiative standards through independent audits in order to continuously improve.
• Committed to place public interest and consumers first, by behaving in the most responsible and transparent way possible if there is ever a breach in the food safety system.
• Committed to openly sharing our knowledge with industry, government and consumers, in pursuit of better food safety at every step of preparation.

The above information is retrieved from http://www.mapleleaf.ca/en/market/food-safety/food-safety-at-maple-leaf/food-safety-pledge/#videotabs