Maple Leaf Foods announced there have been four positive findings for listeria in two products produced on a single line at the Bartor Road plant in Toronto, the same plant linked to the listeriosis outbreak that has killed 20 people since August.
The four positives were the result of more than 5,000 product tests completed at the facility during the past several weeks.
Despite the new discovery of listeria monocytogenes in product processed at the Bartor Road facility, President and CEO Michael McCain on Thursday defended the company's protocols for coping with such food safety risks.
After closing Aug. 20, the plant reopened Sept. 17 under intense supervision from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and with strict operation protocols in place. However, due to what McCain described as mechanical and electrical challenges and intensive testing procedures, the facility has only been operating at about 30 percent of capacity since reopening, and no product has been released to customers.
"We understood this plant was going to be a fishbowl," McCain said. "Our first priority is making sure we're cautious." He said he could not provide an estimate regarding when product from Bartor Road might be in the marketplace again, but noted there is ongoing dialogue between Maple Leaf and CFIA about the situation.
McCain emphasized that finding listeria at the plant was not unexpected, and cited statistics from the Canadian Food Directorate that up to 10 percent of ready-to-eat food contains some listeria and is benign to the vast majority of consumers. "We will never eliminate listeria," he said. "That is an impossible expectation. We will work to reduce the risk to the lowest reasonable level possible, but we cannot eliminate the risk."
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