Canada Listeriosis Outbreak-2008

Listeriosis is basically a food poisoning caused due to consuming food which is contaminated with bacteria named as Listeria monocytogenes. Animal can carry this bacteria, so meats and dairy products can be affected. In case of vegetables mainly they contaminate from soil or from manure such as fertilizer. In case of its symptoms, it includes fever, muscle ache, and sometimes nausea or diarrhea. You should also learn many things about listeria through following video: -

Now let’s talk about the listeria outbreak that was caused because of Maple Leaf Foods in summer of 2008. This outbreak was caused due to the infected sliced meat sold by maple leaf foods in starting of summer 2008. The company came to know slightly about this disease when four to five cases came in front in month of June. Then during end of July cases increased to eight which was significant and before declaring outbreak they took genetic tests of clusters of infected listeria organism. Federal officials confirmed one death and 16 more cases on mid of August then Maple Leaf Foods expanded their recall to almost 23 meat and bakery products. After August month end Public Health Authority of Canada officials declared that there are not only 15 deaths in Ontario, but also one each in Quebec, BC, and Saskatchewan. Outbreak clusters was cured to zero till September, 2009 which lead to 22 deaths. Then federal government implemented 57 new strategies to keep people safe from future disaster. Maple Leaf Foods CEO Michael McCain also apologised for this whole outbreak.

Reference: -

1.      www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsiujHGKHRs

2.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIsN5AkJ1AI

3.      Guffey, M., & Loewy, D. (2010). Business communication process & product. (6th ed., p. 317).

MLF-Products

 Maple Leaf Foods put the innovation as a key focus and they launch around 100 or more new products a year in hard effort to rejuvenate product categories and create new ones. Maple Leaf Foods divided their products into three categories, Together coordinating and complementing each other :-

1. Meat product groups 
2. Bakery product groups
3. Agribusiness product groups 

Meat Product groups: - Value adder-products are produced by MLF. Brands include Maple Leaf, Schneider's. After company increased the prices in May 2013, meat volumes became weaker. McCain, the CEO of MLF, said that they were not planning additional significant cost boost up this year for its meat, which include Klik luncheon meat.

Bakery Product Groups: - MLF is leader fresh and frozen bakery and pasta products. Brands including for bakery products are Dempster’s, Olafson’s, New York bakery, Bon Matin, U.K bakery. Their North American and U.K bakery operations are the leading brands of fresh and good quality product in Canada.

Agribusiness Products Groups: - As we all know agribusiness is the business of agricultural productions. Agribusiness operations include hog productions, biodiesel and are the integral part of our protein operations. Maple Leaf Foods is widely traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol MFI.
Reference: -
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZasf0Pf8a0
2. http://www.mapleleaffoods.com/en/corporate/company-info/

Ups and Downs

Lets talk about finance of Maple leaf foods first, Nowadays, shares price range is from 13.15$ to 13.26$  and in last few months the company got much loss as the company displayed a $14.8-million loss in what the company grants was a “very difficult” first quarter, but CEO Michael McCain termed the problems as both “transitory” and “self-correcting.”

“This was a very difficult quarter, with lower earnings in our protein business overshadowing good improvement in our bakery results,” McCain said. The meat business had enjoyed a steady improvement for several years, because of poor market conditions, was hurt in the quarter.
Reference: -
http://business.financialpost.com/2013/05/02/maple-leaf-foods-posts-14-8-million-loss-in-very-difficult-quarter/